


Different

by Tonxi



Series: Sanvers Is Endgame - Series [16]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Blue Springs, Bullying, Day 2, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Panic, Highschool AU, Minor Violence, Sanvers - Freeform, Sanvers Week, SanversWeek, Sanversweek2018, sleepover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonxi/pseuds/Tonxi
Summary: Alex Danvers moves to Blue Springs for a few months with her family because her parents are contributing to some research in the area. That's where she meets Maggie Sawyer...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a one piece contribution to the Sanversweek2k18 and grew totally out of hand, so it will now be a several chapter long fic. For the start you get 3 chapters of it to let their story unfold a bit.

Maggie squeezed through the hallways of Blue Springs’ highschool, as always trying to hold up her head to not seem weak and at the same time hopefully being as invisible as possible. Unfortunately, she didn’t have luck with either of those today which she realized when she tripped over a foot that certainly hadn’t been there a second ago. She stumbled before falling to the floor, her shoulder hitting the cold stone hard as she had been holding books and as a result was unable to break her fall properly. She didn’t let any sound of pain escape her mouth though, instead she just looked up angrily at Harold, Eliza Wilky’s older brother that had been giving her hell the last two years. Well, he wasn’t the only one but he certainly was the most frequent one.

“What do you want?”, Maggie snarled, trying to get up before he kicked her in the shoulder and she fell back down again.

“Just make sure you know your place”, he taunted, looking around at a few of his mates and other bystanders who had gathered around the stage of one more harassment of Maggie Sawyer.

“What place would that be exactly?”, Maggie heard an unknown female voice behind her which made her turn in surprise. The voice belonged to a tall and lanky girl with long auburn hair that looked Harold in the eyes with obvious annoyance.

“Who are you exactly?”, Harold wanted to know with a disbelieving grin on his face.

“Alex Danvers”, she replied without hesitance before reaching out a hand towards Maggie in order to help her up.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you”, Harold said in a warning tone. “I guess you’re new so I’ll warn you just this once that you are choosing the wrong side if you as much as touch this.” He gestured vaguely in Maggie’s direction. Maggie didn’t want to get Alex in trouble so she decided to not grab her hand so that she could back out of the situation if she wanted to. She really didn’t wish the bullying on anyone. Alex apparently didn’t mind in the slightest because when Maggie tried to get up on her own, Alex picked up her books and handed them to her with a comforting touch to Maggie’s shoulder.

“You’re not very bright, are you?”, Harold sneered towards Alex, stepping closer. Maggie was amazed to see that Alex actually stepped towards Harold herself, using her body to protect Maggie from any more harm.

“We’ll see about that”, she snarled back, anger flashing in her eyes.

“Leave it”, Maggie mumbled from behind her. A younger blond girl had come up next to her, putting a hand on Alex’s wrist.

“Alex”, the girl said in a calm, soothing voice. “Please…”

Alex seemed to relax a bit, her body not as tensed up as before which caused Harold to say: “Yeah, listen to the two oddballs. I guess you three will make great friends.”

He laughed, most of the bystanders joining in, before turning away and making his way down the hall.

Maggie let out a deep breath, glad that it was at least over for now.

“You didn’t have to do this”, she said when Alex finally turned, still glaring over her shoulder. She acted like she hadn’t actually heard her and only asked: “Are you okay?”

Her eyes were so much softer now than only a second ago, Maggie blinked a few times before shrugging and wincing in the process, her shoulder hurting more than she had expected.

“Is it your shoulder?”, Alex wanted to know in concern, scanning Maggie’s body with her eyes as if to detect injuries.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it”, Maggie brushed her off. “And uhm… thanks. Although you didn’t do yourself a favor there.”

“I don’t care”, Alex growled. “What’s his problem anyway?”

Maggie chose not to reply and looked at the blonde girl still standing next to her.

“Oh yeah sorry, I’m Alex”, the tall girl quickly said. “And this is my sister Kara.”

The blond girl smiled brightly.

“Hi, I’m Maggie”, Maggie offered with a small wave. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Nothing goes past anybody in this town, does it?”, Alex chuckled with raised eyebrows. “We just moved here last weekend. Our parents are scientists and have a research project in the area for the next few months, so yeah.”

“Cool”, Maggie said, still slightly taken aback by the bold rescue and the obvious lack of fear and judgement Alex was showing.

“Can we get lunch now?”, Kara asked in a small voice.

“Uhm sure, sorry, Kar”, Alex replied before turning towards Maggie. “Can you show us the way to the cafeteria?”

“Yeah, no problem”, she said, motioning for the two new girls to follow her. While they walked through the considerably less crowded hallways, Maggie explained where the different classrooms were situated and they talked about the classes they were taking. Alex was a senior just like Maggie and they shared several classes together while Kara was still a sophomore.

They grabbed their lunch without too much problems and found a table in the corner at the back – Maggie’s usual table which she liked because she could see everyone coming a mile away. But she seemed to be distracted today because Harold’s voice startled her when he suddenly appeared behind Kara and snatched away her chocolate pie.

“Hey”, she exclaimed while Alex got up immediately to raise herself to her full height in front of him.

“Give it back”, she said in a calm if menacing voice. “ _Now_.”

“But I really like chocolate pie”, he leered, smiling over his shoulder at the two backups he had brought. “It’s your fault you didn’t listen to my warning.”

Alex just huffed out a laugh.

“Last warning, give it back”, she snarled, crossing her arms before her chest.

“Alex”, Kara whispered as if to try to calm her down. Maggie just observed the whole scene, somehow frozen as she often was when Harold was involved – too many painful memories.

Harold just laughed again and was just about to turn and walk away when Alex attacked and had him pinned to the table with his arm behind his back so fast that Maggie hadn’t even blinked. The two backups Harold had brought – John and Johnny – were in Alex’s face a second later, but she aimed one good kick at John’s knee that had him falling down and wailing in pain while using her free elbow to get Johnny’s nose that started to bleed at once, causing him to howl in pain and turning away.

“What the hell is your problem?”, Harold groaned, obviously in pain himself. “Are you a homo, too?”

Maggie’s eyes shot up to Alex’s face that had confusion written all over for a second.

“What the hell is _your_ problem?!”, she just hissed back, grabbing for the chocolate pie and handing it back to Kara.

“Miss Danvers, what is going on here?”, a voice roared through the cafeteria. Maggie flinched, it was Mr. Kurtis who quickly made his way over, causing Alex to finally let go of Harold.

“She attacked me”, Harold whined the second Mr. Kurtis was within earshot.

“That’s not true”, Maggie exclaimed at once.

“Miss Sawyer, you would be wise to shut up. You have landed yourself in trouble enough times”, Mr. Kurtis shot at her harshly. A mix of anger and resentment coursed through Maggie’s veins. This was just typical.

“Miss Danvers, follow me to the principal’s office”, he bellowed towards Alex who glared back but grabbed her bag all the same. “And you three go to the nurse. We need you fit for the game next weekend.”

“See you later”, Alex mumbled before following Mr. Kurtis out of the cafeteria.

“Are you okay?”, Maggie asked Kara when everybody was gone.

“Yeah”, she sighed, visibly sinking into her seat. “Mom is going to be so mad. Alex promised her she wouldn’t get in trouble while we’re here.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly her fault”, Maggie replied, looking sheepish.

“It never was back in Midvale either”, Kara whispered, lowering her head. “She just always stood up for me when someone was giving me a hard time.”

“She obviously has a protective streak”, Maggie commented.

“And apparently a liking for odd people”, Kara sighed again. “Not that I find you odd, I meant myself.”

Maggie laughed, wondering if Kara had missed the homo comment.

“I think you both are great and the others are jerks”, Maggie tried to comfort Kara. “Come on, eat up and I’ll show you to your next class. You can have my chocolate pie too if you like.”

Her eyes lit up and Maggie grinned while handing over her dessert.

 

Alex groaned when she was finally out of the principal’s office. Apparently, this place was full of bigoted white men, because she hadn’t even been properly listened to. What he did do was call her mother and Alex was not at all amused by the aspect of coming home tonight. She was even slightly glad about the detention she had gotten which meant she had one more hour before the disappointment in her parents’ eyes.

She turned a corner trying to remember the way to her literature class when she suddenly bumped into a tall black guy. Apologizing quickly and hoping she didn’t get herself into yet another fight, she looked up at him.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you”, he said in a deep voice. “Normally there’s no one in the hallways this time around. Are you lost?”

“Yeah, kind of”, Alex admitted. “I should be in literature with Miss M’orzz.”

“Ah, that’s where I’m coming from. She got me to go get the beamer”, he explained with a smile. “If you follow me, you’ll have to make a detour but I’ll make sure you’ll reach your target. I’m James by the way.”

“Alex, thanks”, she replied thankfully, following him to the library and then back.

When they entered the classroom, James went to set up the beamer while Alex shuffled over to explain to Miss M’orzz why she was late. Way to make a good first impression. Miss M’orzz didn’t seem too phased however, because she only replied: “Go sit over there next to James”, and even shot her a small smile.

 

After literature James showed her the way to her history classroom before heading to psychology. Alex was already trying to figure out how she could get a hold of Kara after that to tell her that she had to go home by herself because she had detention. The classes so far hadn’t been hard for Alex, so it wasn’t a big deal that she was so distracted. Mr. Kurtis who was the history teacher tried to throw her off her game a few times with seemingly difficult questions but as she had already covered WWI in Midvale, she had no problem answering them.

When the bell finally rang, Alex stormed through the hallways trying to find Kara. When she was unsuccessful for a whole ten minutes, she decided to go back to her car. Just when she was exiting the building, Mr. Kurtis’ voice rang through the hallway: “Miss Danvers, you got detention, come back in here at once!”

“I know, I just have to tell my sister that…”, she started, keeping on walking. She wasn’t actually late yet, so she didn’t understand the drama.

“Come back in here”, he yelled, having nearly caught up to her. She came to a halt, rolling her eyes. This day was just going great. Now her mother would give her more shit for not being able to take care of Kara.

“I’ll go tell her”, she suddenly heard Maggie whisper next to her. As Mr. Kurtis was nearly at level, Alex just nodded and smiled at her thankfully before Maggie hurried off.

 

Maggie walked onto the parking area, trying to spot Kara which was proving difficult because she wasn’t exactly tall herself and the place was packed with students.

“Looking for someone?”, she heard James’ familiar voice behind her. He was flanked by Winn and thankfully Kara.

“Yeah, her”, Maggie replied with a grin, looking over at Kara.

“Sorry, Kara, Alex was stopped by Mr. Kurtis again and couldn’t come out to tell you herself”, Maggie started explaining, still feeling guilty about all the trouble she had caused. “But she got detention because of the whole lunch deal.”

“Oh”, Kara replied, her face falling, looking slightly worried.

“We’ll get you home, don’t worry”, Maggie was quick to assure her. “Do you know the address?”

Kara shook her head.

“Well, Blue Springs isn’t too big, can you describe the house?”, Winn offered as a different solution to their problem.

“Uhm… I dunno”, Kara stuttered, clearly panicking now.

“No problem”, Maggie said wanting to put a comforting arm around the younger girl but refrained from doing so because this had ended with accusations too often in the past. “My aunt won’t be back from work until 7, I’ll wait here with you.”

“You sure?”, Kara asked, looking unsure. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

Maggie laughed at that.

“I think I have caused more trouble for you today than you for me, little Danvers”, she grinned down at her.

“Will you guys be okay?”, James wanted to know. “I have to head to training, sorry.”

“No worries, just make sure to hit Harold really hard”, Maggie replied, her features darkening.

“Will do, as always”, James shot back over his shoulder, already halfway off to the changing rooms.

“I’ll stay, too”, Winn said. “I can catch you up on our math class, if you want to, Kara.”

“Yeah, okay”, she agreed, smiling at Winn and Maggie thankfully.

They made their way over to a table with benches under the trees and set down to work. By the time Alex’s detention had ended, they had assembled by her car. Alex came positively running out of the building, hugging Kara and mumbling apologies into her sister’s ear before thanking Winn and Maggie at least two times each for staying and waiting with her.

“Can I at least drive you home for your trouble?”, Alex asked in a tone that did not leave a lot of arguing, so Winn and Maggie quickly agreed.

They dropped off Winn first, Alex thanking him again for staying before they drove on to the outskirts of the town to where Maggie lived.

“I’m sorry for everything, Alex”, Maggie said before hopping out of the car.

“Hey”, Alex yelled, pulling down her window to make Maggie look back at her. It was the first time she could fully appreciate how she looked. She was small but muscly, her dark skin and hair shining in the sun and her eyes shimmering back at Alex when she turned.

“Don’t be, I’m glad we met”, Alex said in a slightly breathy voice. “See you tomorrow.”

Maggie smiled back at her before turning and walking up to the small house she inhabited with her aunt, feeling very confused. She was already beyond grateful to have Winn and James as some sort of friends and backup and now she had met two more people who had actually stood up for her. Well, they hadn’t known about why everyone else was giving her shit. She was almost certain by their reactions and that they were still talking to her, that they hadn’t caught Harold’s homo comment. But Alex was very nice to her and she looked absolutely gorgeous and… No, this was bad. Maggie really should keep her distance or she would get hurt again. She shook her head, plopping down on a chair at the kitchen table pulling out her homework and trying to concentrate until her aunt would turn up. She utterly failed.

 

“Did you know Maggie lives with her aunt?”, Kara said when Alex had drove them around the first corner.

“No”, Alex replied in surprise. “Do you know why?”

“No”, Kara answered, then she was quiet for a minute, before asking: “Alex, what is a homo?”

Alex chuckled, shooting her sister an adoring look. She sometimes forgot that Kara still had a lot to learn. These funny questions had become fewer over the last few months, but sometimes something like that still came up.

“If you’re referring to the jerk’s comment, he meant it as in homosexuals”, Alex explained calmly. “You know, as in a man loving a man or a woman loving a woman.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Kara wanted to know, looking over at Alex.

“No, actually it’s not”, Alex went on. “There are just a lot of people around that feel threatened by anything that doesn’t fit into their restricted view of the world. We really landed ourselves in the backwoods.”

She sighed heavily.

“Do you think that’s why Maggie doesn’t live with her parents?”, Kara asked after a short pause.

“I don’t know, maybe”, Alex replied with a shrug. She had wondered that herself all afternoon.

“I don’t care, I like her”, Kara finally said with a bright smile.

“Me too”, Alex agreed, smiling back at her sister. When she turned a corner however, her face fell. She spotted their new place and in there, her parents would be waiting for them.

 

“Maggie?”, she heard her aunt yell up from the kitchen.

“I’ll be down in a minute”, she shouted back from her desk where she was trying to finally finish up her biology homework.

“No, there’s someone on the phone for you”, her aunt replied, by the sound of her voice she was already halfway up the stairs.

Maggie scrambled up from her chair and ran down to receive the phone. She shot her aunt a weary look. Normally she knew by now which were the calls she had to dodge in order for her niece not to be bullied.

“It’s an Alex”, she whispered and chuckled when Maggie’s features lit up.

“Hello?”, Maggie said in a slightly breathless voice, making her way back to her room with the phone pressed to her right ear.

“Hi, it’s Alex”, came the quick reply. “I hope it’s okay that I called.”

“Uhm, yeah, where did you get the number from?”, Maggie asked in confusion.

“I looked it up, although I think I got the wrong Sawyers first”, Alex said. “Not very nice people but they at least seemed to know where to find you.”

Maggie was silent for a moment.

“Yeah, that would… that would be my parents, sorry about that”, she replied, her voice slightly hoarse out of emotion.

“Okay…”, Alex sounded startled.

Maggie sighed. Might as well get this over with.

“I’m gay, so they threw me out”, Maggie said in a detached sort of voice. “So, now you’re up with the town’s gossip.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I don’t understand”, Alex’s voice came through the phone, now sounding very confused. “Why would… why would they do that?”

Maggie just laughed a hollow laugh and shrugged.

“I’m sorry Maggie”, Alex whispered into the phone.

“It’s okay, we can act like we never met tomorrow and we’ll both be fine”, Maggie conceded, feeling everything but fine. But she didn’t want it to be as hard for Alex as it was for her.

“What? Why?”, Alex wanted to know, now actually sounding hurt.

“You don’t have to be nice to me, you know”, Maggie tried to clarify, probably sounding a bit too harsh, but the walls she had built up over time didn’t allow for anything else.

“I’m nice to you because I actually like you”, Alex sounded indignant, Maggie wasn’t sure if she had actually heard her bristle. “And I wanted to ask you if I should pick you up for school tomorrow.”

“Uhm…”, Maggie hesitated, startled by Alex’s obvious will to hang out with her in spite of everything that had happened today and everything she now knew about Maggie.

“You don’t have to of course, I just thought… It’s not a big detour for me… us I mean and you wouldn’t have to take the bus or walk or whatever you do”, Alex rambled.

“Okay”, Maggie said to stop her ranting.

“Cool, I’ll pick you up at 8”, she heard the smile in Alex’s voice.

“Okay, thanks”, Maggie replied hearing Alex say ‘bye’ and hang up. She dropped the phone from her ear and stared at it in disbelief, before shaking her head shortly and bouncing down the stairs to join her aunt for dinner.

 

“So, who’s Alex?”, Jasmina – her aunt – wanted to know when they had settled at the table with freshly filled tacos.

“No one”, Maggie mumbled quickly, lowering her eyes to her plate. Jasmina just grinned at her knowingly. Apparently, she couldn’t have been any more obvious.

“Fiiiiine”, Maggie relented after a few seconds. “She’s new at school and stood up for me today. So, I took care of her younger sister while she was in detention.”

“Nice of you”, Jasmina replied with a smile towards her niece who just shrugged and said: “Nice of _her_.”

“You like her”, her aunt stated.

“Well, she’s one of four people who are now nice to me at school, so yeah, I like her”, Maggie tried to brush her off. She was sure she had done a much better job than before but the look in her aunt’s eyes told her otherwise. She groaned internally. She really had to make sure that her crush wouldn’t show at school. Or better: Not let it become a crush at all. Yeah.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first week continues...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There is some minor violence ahead!
> 
> But you get lots of people caring for the victim afterwards :)

Alex got up feeling far better than she should after the things she had had to listen to the previous night. Her mother in particular hadn’t been at all pleased by her elder daughter failing to keep her promise at only the first day. Kara had tried to intervene and explain, but her mother hadn’t even listened to her this time.

It was mostly quiet and tense during breakfast, so Alex shoved down her porridge as quickly as possible, eager to get out of the house and into the car. After Kara had finally finished her fifth helping, they left for the day with a hug from Eliza. Their father was already gone for the day.

 

They drove by Winn’s house to pick him up first and Alex was amused when Kara hopped into the back with him, leaving an empty seat for Maggie at the front next to Alex.

When Alex pulled up the car in front of Maggie’s home, she was already waiting even though they were actually five minutes early.

“Morning”, Alex greeted Maggie with a smile, turning down the music that Kara and Winn had been singing along to.

“Hi”, Maggie said, grinning back at her while listening to the complaints coming from the backseats.

“Fine, let the grownups talk”, Winn relented when it became clear that Alex wasn’t turning up the volume. However, this didn’t stop them from starting to sing along again.

Seeing that the other two were otherwise occupied, Maggie felt safe enough to ask: “How was your evening? Were your parents alright?”

Alex just grimaced and shrugged at that.

“I’m really sorry”, Maggie said again, looking over at her earnestly.

“Stop apologizing! If anyone should apologize, it’s the fuck heads who harassed you”, Alex growled back.

“Filthy mouth there, Danvers”, Maggie shot back with a grin. Alex turned her head towards her and couldn’t help but return it. It felt weirdly good being called ‘Danvers’ by Maggie.

“Yeah, as if you’re a saint, Sawyer”, Alex retorted before turning her attention back on the road again.

She could hear Maggie chuckle in return and suppressed a smile.

 

That day, Alex found out that she actually shared a lot of classes with Maggie. She didn’t complain about that in the slightest and eased up a bit when she found out that Winn took a lot of the same classes as Kara too and she didn’t have to rush around during breaks to get Kara to the right rooms all the time. Also, the place next to Maggie was usually free which meant that she got to sit next to her. It was nice making friends so fast.

During lunch, they were joined by Kara, Winn and James again. Having James with them did apparently stop others to come bother them, because Alex observed that Maggie was a lot less tense with him around.

When they talked about the upcoming match on Saturday and decided that they would all go see James play, Alex asked Maggie: “Do you play any sports?”

“Uhm, I used to be on the softball team”, she answered in a rather small voice.

“Got kicked out by the bigots again, huh?”, Alex growled back sympathetically and bumped into Maggie’s shoulder, shooting her a smile. Maggie felt butterflies erupt in her stomach. Oh no, this wasn’t good. But she couldn’t help but grin back.

“Did you do anything before you came here?”, Maggie wanted to know, handing her dessert over to Kara who squealed in delight. This earned her a very soft look from Alex that led Maggie to decide to always give Kara her dessert from now on.

“She was a very successful surfer”, Kara replied for her sister, unpacking the pudding and diving a spoon into it.

Maggie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Honestly, you should see her room, it’s full of trophies and medals”, Kara went on after a large gulp. Alex just laughed and waved her off, turning slightly pink. Maggie thought that she was very adorable.

“Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but…”, Maggie said hesitantly. “We don’t exactly have an ocean nearby. Not even a lake. Maybe the pond in the woods will do?”

Alex threw her head back laughing at the comment, bumping into Maggie again. Maggie just loved that laugh. It was careless and full of joy, it electrified her whole body.

“Maybe you can join the swim team”, Winn said excitedly.

“Let me guess, you’re on the swim team, too?”, Alex asked, looking bemused when Winn nodded eagerly.

“Yeah, okay, why not?”, Alex conceded and they arranged for Alex to join practice the next afternoon.

When Maggie and Alex made their way over to their chemistry class, the others having left for their own classes, Alex said with a smirk: “Okay, you have to get me in on the secret now.”

Maggie just looked at her, confused. Sure, she had a lot of secrets, but Alex already knew all the bad ones.

“How do you stay that fit without being in any sort of sports club?”, Alex elaborated.

“How do you know I’m fit?”, Maggie retorted in surprise.

“Well, I have eyes…”, she just replied with an eyeroll. Maggie’s heart rate sped up. Alex wasn’t gay, was she? She hadn’t said anything. Maybe to protect herself? Maggie was pretty sure she was just projecting.

“So?”, Alex pushed while they took their seats in the class room.

“Oh, I mostly go running and do a few work out routines”, Maggie just explained with a shrug.

“I thought I’d go for a run before school now that I can’t surf in the morning anymore”, Alex offered with a thinking face. “You can join if you want.”

“Sure, I’d like that”, Maggie heard herself reply before even being able to consider the offer. What the hell happened to the walls she had put up? Alex seemed to have pushed them down in only 24 hours, this wasn’t going to end well.

 

They had decided to begin their running routine only on Thursday because the next day – a Wednesday – would be Alex’s first day of swimming practice.

After enjoying a pretty uneventful day – at least compared to her first one – Alex joined Winn for practice in the indoor pool on the school grounds. She was pleased to see that she could easily keep up with the fastest on the team, only being corrected in her technique by Miss M’orzz who was the coach now and again.

Feeling elated she offered to drop off Winn at home but he still had to go to the library and told her that he would be fine walking. Alex left the pool and headed to the parking lot with an actual smile on her face, finding that it wouldn’t be so bad in Blue Springs after all, when she felt someone push her from behind. She fell to the ground, unable to break her fall because while she was still falling, someone kicked her into her ribs sideways and she fell face first onto the gravel. Groaning, she tried to turn on her back to make out her attackers, but couldn’t because someone’s foot was pressing down on her shoulders while she was kicked for a few times again from both sides.

She shrieked in pain and hoped that someone might hear her, but apparently there was just nobody around anymore.

“Think she learned her lesson?”, she heard Harold’s snarl. She couldn’t actually see him because her vision was blurry. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain or the tears that had gathered in her eyes. She finally felt the foot leave her ribcage and was glad she was able to breathe again and even more so when she heard footsteps shuffle away. She moaned in painjust laying there for a while before rolling over onto her back, wincing and flinching when she spotted a blurry face over her head.

“Miss Danvers, are you okay? What happened?”

Alex was almost sure the voice belonged to Miss M’orzz, but with the blood pounding in her ears and her vision still blurry she couldn’t be sure.

“Can you get up?”, the voice asked in a soft tone, now crouching down next to her. “Is it okay if I touch you and try to help you up?”

“Yeah”, Alex croaked back, blinking a few times, relieved when Miss M’orzz’s face came into focus before her eyes. She had put an arm around Alex carefully and lifted her up from the ground, apparently she was a lot stronger than she looked.

“Thank you”, Alex whispered, then cleared her throat.

“Who did that to you?”, her teacher and coach wanted to know again.

“Harold, I think”, Alex replied in a small voice, hunching over to reduce the stinging pain in her left side a bit.

“Figures”, she heard Miss M’orzz say. “I’ll talk to the principal about that, but I have to be honest. As there are no witnesses, I fear there isn’t much hope for this.”

Alex just snorted before wincing in pain again.

“You should really go see a doctor, Alex”, her coach advised in a soft tone, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“No, my mom’s gonna kill me”, Alex intervened at once. “I just need a minute and then I’ll head home.”

Miss M’orzz seemed to contemplate for a moment.

“Then we’ll go see the nurse now”, she finally said, her tone not leaving much room for an argument.

“Okay”, Alex conceded, putting herself upright again and following her teacher inside. Alex was limping slightly, because her left knee hurt too. As they were making their way through the empty hallways towards the nurse, Alex became more aware of all the places her body was in pain.

When they had finally reached the infirmary, Alex had to list her right ribs, her knee, her lower back, her right wrist and her head when she was asked by the nurse where it hurt.

Alex could see the nurse exchange a look with Miss M’orzz, before beginning to treat her scratches first. Alex had somehow not registered that blood was dripping from her forehead, left knee and right hand.

After being patched up, the nurse made sure to control every other part of her body, gingerly scanning Alex’s body with her hands to detect any inner injuries.

“You should really go see a doctor”, she finally concluded. “I’m not sure if one of your rips might be at least cracked. I’ll call your parents.”

“No”, Alex all but shouted. “Can you just… just give me a letter that I can give them or something?”

She looked pleadingly between the nurse and Miss M’orzz who finally nodded and Alex let out a relieved breath.

Her coach made sure that she reached her car and was actually fit to drive before letting her off the hook. On the one hand, Alex was thankful for her caring so much, on the other hand this could mean that her parents would get to hear of the incident even if she didn’t give them the latter. But she decided to deal with one problem at a time.

 

When she finally humped into the kitchen at home, Kara came scurrying over at once, looking at her in concern before pulling down her glasses and scanning Alex’s whole body with her x-ray vision.

“Alex, what happened?”, she asked in a shocked voice. “You have a cracked rib.”

“She has what now?”, Alex heard her father’s voice and turned around in shock which let a sharp pain shoot through her left side and made her double over in pain. Her father was by her side in seconds, putting a comforting arm around her to help her straighten up again.

“What happened, Alex?”, he wanted to know, his voice soft and full of concern. For a moment she actually contemplated to tell him what had happened, but then she remembered the trouble this might cause for her and Kara when they would accuse Harold of such a thing and get the whole town against them. Maggie was a very good example for how things worked in Blue Springs.

“Fell down the stairs”, Alex mumbled instead.

“Should we take you to the hospital?”, her father asked, looking over at Kara who just shrugged.

“No, I’m fine, you are doctors too, I’ll be fine”, Alex quickly assured them.

“Okay, but let me at least give you something for the pain”, he finally conceded, getting up to get her some advil and water.

 

When Alex was at last alone in her room, having fought off Kara who apparently didn’t want to leave her out of her sight again, she sat down on her bed gingerly. For a moment she had the strange urge to call Maggie and tell her what had happened, but that would mean that she would have to cancel their running the following morning and she really didn’t want to do that.

So, she decided to do her homework instead. This proved to be difficult however because her right wrist hurt like hell. She cut it short by reducing it to the bare minimum where she would otherwise have squeezed in all sorts of extra knowledge and then lay down on her bed where she fell asleep at some point.

She only woke up when Kara was poking her softly in her thigh, apparently having scanned her body to find a place where it wouldn’t hurt.

“I brought you a sandwich”, Kara whispered when Alex opened her eyes in confusion. She had to smile at her sister who considered food one of the top priorities in life. Alex knew that it was her way of showing her love for her.

“Thanks, Kar”, Alex croaked back, trying to get up. “’s mom home yet?”

“No, she has to work late today”, Kara calmed her fears at once. “Dad said, it’s okay for you to eat up here if I help you change. He’ll come up to check on you in a bit.”

“Okay”, Alex sighed, letting Kara help her up and out of her clothes. Alex winced again when she spotted herself in the mirror. Ugly bruises were starting to form all over her body.

“Are you sure you fell down the stairs?”, Kara asked in a small voice while helping Alex into a shirt. Alex looked at her sister for a second before nodding. Kara looked like she wanted to press on but was stopped by Jeremiah knocking on the door. He had brought another advil for Alex that she washed down gratefully before eating her sandwich.

“If you need anything or the pain gets worse, just let me know”, he told her with a soft kiss on her forehead before leaving the two girls alone again.

“Should I call Maggie for you?”, Kara offered after a minute of Alex silently chewing on her sandwich.

“What? Why?”, Alex pressed through a full mouth.

“Alex, you can’t go running like that”, Kara sighed, knowing her sister all too well.

“Says who?”, Alex grumbled back, scowling at her little sister.

“Says I”, Kara retorted without hesitation. “And dad.”

“Fine, I’ll text her”, Alex finally said, grabbing for her phone on the night stand. They had all exchanged their numbers during lunch that day.

Kara waited while Alex typed a message to Maggie: _Sorry, can’t make it to run tomorrow. Fell down the stairs. Pick you up at 8. Alex_

“Happy?”, Alex mumbled, showing the phone to her sister, who nodded with a small smile and a kiss to Alex’s cheek.

“Want me to get you something before I have to go to bed?”, Kara offered, getting up from Alex’s bed where she had been sitting.

“No, thanks, I’m fine”, Alex replied, carefully dropping down into the sheets again, handing over her empty plate to her sister.

“Sleep well… and be better soon”, Kara said in a soft voice, exiting with a sad smile on her face.

Alex groaned. This was all so messed up.

Sure, she had gotten into trouble in Midvale before. After Kara had come to earth, she had at first been very annoyed by her because her new sister had simply been odd and was costing Alex her social standard far too fast. It hadn’t taken long for her however to begin to love that little blond girl that was so oblivious and lost in this new world. In the beginning, Alex had only taken care of her because her parents had told her to do so, but at some point Kara had really become her sister and she would do anything to protect her.

This had gotten her a few problems back in Midvale because a lot of people thought it would be fun to mess with the new little girl who was simply a bit different. Alex teaching them to know better – with words and physically too if it had had to come to that – had earned her a bit of a reputation that had clashed oddly with her good grades.

The plan for Blue Springs had been to behave and concentrate on her education but that hadn’t worked out very well so far. She sighed heavily again.

When she was already halfway drifting off to sleep, she heard her phone vibrate. With the possibility that it could be Maggie texting back, she made the painful effort to roll over and was rewarded with a reply: _Oh no! Hope you feel better soon! See you tomorrow. xoxo Maggie_

Alex’s stomach did a strange lurch. Maybe she should cut the painkillers a bit short.

 

When Alex woke up the next morning, she couldn’t move. Every tiny movement she wanted to perform hurt like hell. She could hear Kara hurrying into her room after she had let out a loud moan.

“Mom, Dad”, Kara shouted and Alex flinched which didn’t help the pain at all.

Her parents came bursting into the room, ridding Alex of her pants and shirt carefully to inspect her bruised body.

“Okay, there is no way I’ll let her go to school like that”, she heard her father say. When Alex finally opened her eyes, she saw her parents exchange a worried look. Her mother began to perform the same task the nurse had done the day before and scanned Alex’s whole body with her hands carefully.

“Careful, that’s the rip that’s cracked”, Kara offered at some point. Alex groaned in pain when she felt her mother’s finger press into it.

“I’ll stay home with her”, her mother told her father who nodded thankfully.

“Think, you are up for some pancakes?”, Alex was asked in the softest voice she had heard her mother use with her in some time.

“Dunno”, she mumbled back. “Someone’s gotta bring Kara, Winn and Maggie to school.”

“That’s my girl, always taking care of others”, her mother told her, putting a hand on her cheek soothingly. “Your father can do that and I can go pick them up, okay dear?”

Alex only nodded, feeling a bit dizzy.

She must have drifted off to sleep again at some point because when she woke up again, it was only her mother with a stack of pancakes that she placed on her nightstand.

Her mother helped her up and into the bathroom before actually cutting her two pancakes and reading her an article out of the science journal she always got and let Alex borrow afterwards while Alex chewed on her breakfast.

When the pain killers finally kicked in, Alex began to feel a lot better and let her mother help her to get a hot bath with a cool shower afterwards. Alex spent the rest of the day on the sofa watching documentaries on TV and going through her school books to guess what she would probably miss that day.

In the afternoon, her mother went away for a short period of time to go shopping and pick up Kara, Winn and Maggie from school. Alex had dozed off again but was suddenly wide awake when she heard the front door open and her mother shouted: “Alex, you have a guest.”

Alex tried to prop herself up slightly when Kara came running in to hug her carefully.

“’m alright, Kar” Alex mumbled, hugging her sister back and spotting Maggie who was led into the living room by her mother.

“This one wanted to come check on you and make sure you got your homework”, her mother explained with a grateful smile towards Maggie, who returned it shyly.

“Anyone up for some waffles?”, her mother offered and had Kara tail her into the kitchen at once.

“Hey”, Maggie finally said, carefully sitting down on the sofa next to Alex. “How d’you feel?”

Alex just scrunched up her face.

“You didn’t fall down stairs, did you?”, Maggie said in a very low voice, scanning Alex’s face carefully for any reaction. Alex just looked panicked, her eyes glancing over towards the kitchen where she heard Kara rant about her day to their mother.

“What makes you say that?”, Alex finally answered.

“Because I had the exact same thing done to me before James put a stop to it”, Maggie replied in a calm voice.

“Please don’t say anything to the others”, Alex just pleaded, looking over to the kitchen again.

“I won’t”, Maggie was quick to promise her. “But I think at least Kara, Winn and James already figured it out by themselves.”

Alex cursed.

“Did you already see a doctor?”, Maggie wanted to know next, eyes full of concern.

“No but my parents are doctors”, Alex tried to brush her off, but she wasn’t very successful.

“What’d they say?”

“Nothing too bad”, Alex relented after a stare down from Maggie. “Cracked rib, a few bruises…”

“Not to forget the large head wound, Danvers”, Maggie added with an exasperated sigh. “You are something else.”

Alex just looked at her apologetically. Maggie returned the look with a small smile.

“So, what’d I miss today?”, Alex asked after a moment where they had just stared at each other.

“Nothing much. P.E. was fun as always”, Maggie said sarcastically, before continuing in a more matter of fact sort of voice. “We had to find teams for a biology project and I’m sorry to tell you that you ended up with me.”

Alex grinned at her.

“What’s it about?”, Alex wanted to know, her interest increasing at the prospect of working together with Maggie.

“Well, it’s old Blue Springs tradition that the seniors have to breed some sort of animal and document the process”, Maggie began explaining. “As this is a farmer’s village, most of the people do chicken, pigs, even horses or cows.”

Alex raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“But I thought we might come up with something different for a change, because we only own a cat which is very male and old and not the perfect candidate”, Maggie concluded, looking at Alex expectantly.

“Well, I own a fish tank”, Alex offered, pulling a thinking face. “I always wanted to try and breed the corys. So that could be an option?”

“Yeah, cool”, Maggie said enthusiastically. “Where are they?”

She looked around the living room in apparent search for a fish tank, but came up empty.

“Up in my room”, Alex replied.

“Ah, next to all the trophies?”, Maggie wanted to know with a grin which made Alex roll her eyes and turn slightly pink.

“I can show you if you want to”, Alex offered, trying to get up.

“Wait, lemme help you”, Maggie said, moving to lay an arm around Alex before withdrawing it again and adding in a small voice: “If that’s okay.”

Alex was a bit confused by her caution to touch her, but nodded with a smile on her face. Everything was hot and cold for a moment while pain shot through Alex’s body again, but then it was somehow a lot better than when she had come down the stairs with her mother’s help in the morning, so she limped along Maggie with a smile on her face.

“How much pain killers did you have?”, Maggie asked looking at her suspiciously.

“Not enough”, Alex groaned back when they came across the first step of the staircase. They made it to the top at some point and Alex felt safe enough to walk the rest of the way on her own, although she couldn’t actually say that she had minded Maggie pressed up against her.

“Welcome to my kingdom”, Alex grinned, motioning for Maggie to enter her room before following her. Maggie looked around in interest. Alex could see her grin when she spotted the trophies and medals above Alex’s desk, but she didn’t say anything and went on to admire the fish tank Alex had set up in the darkest corner of her room.

“Wow, this looks awesome”, Maggie whispered in awe, looking up at Alex. “I’ve never seen a fish tank that beautiful. It looks like a tiny forest.”

Alex blushed slightly before explaining: “It’s called aquascaping. You know, you take some landscape and then try to reproduce it in a fish tank.”

“Wow”, Maggie breathed again. “Ah, I see the corys.”

“Yeah, they’re panda corys”, Alex offered. “I have a book about them somewhere. Maybe we can meet this weekend to study and plan?”

“Sounds great”, Maggie replied with a smile in Alex’s direction, before turning back to the tank again.

“Where’d you girls go off to?”, they heard Eliza shout from downstairs. “Waffles are ready.”

“Want some?”, Alex asked Maggie with raised eyebrows. “If you do, we should probably hurry up or Kara won’t leave us any.”

“Yeah, I gotta say, that kid’s got a healthy appetite”, Maggie laughed before following Alex out of her room and offering an arm to help her downstairs.

Maggie stayed for another hour, eating waffles with them and explaining to Alex what they had done in school and what they had for homework.

“Will you be back to school tomorrow?”, Maggie asked when she got up to leave. Alex looked up at her mom questioningly, who contemplated her for a second before shaking her head.

“Maybe for the game on Saturday”, Alex replied towards Maggie. “But you can come over on Sunday for the bio project in any case. Just check with your aunt and let me know when you’ll come over.”

Alex looked at her mom again to make sure that she was okay with that and received a smile and a nod in return.

 

“You’re awfully quiet today”, James stated during lunch on Friday. Maggie looked up at him, having poked around in her food for the last few minutes. She just shrugged before handing over her brownie to Kara which earned her an enormous smile that she couldn’t help but return.

“It’s not your fault, you know”, James said in a low voice at which Maggie grimaced at him.

“But it is”, she whispered biting her lip.

“No, it’s not”, he pressed on. “Just as it wasn’t your fault when they did that to you. Or anyone else really.”

Maggie sighed and smiled up at him thankfully before waving off Winn and Kara who wanted to drop by the library before their next lesson.

“You know, it’s okay if you don’t wanna come for the game tomorrow and check on Alex instead”, he added after a moment.

“Why would I do that?”, she answered a bit too quickly. A small smile was playing around his lips now.

“I don’t know, no reason”, he said now actually grinning.

“It’s not like that”, Maggie replied with an eyeroll. “I don’t even know if she’s into girls or not. Do you?”

She looked up at him, trying to keep out the hope of her voice and eyes. She had probably failed, because he just shook his head with a smile.

“You could ask her”, he suggested, emptying his juice pack in one go.

“Yeah, great idea”, she retorted, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “That’s always gone great for me.”

“Even if she isn’t, I don’t think that would change anything for her. I don’t think she’s like that”, James stated to which Maggie only shrugged and said: “Come on, let’s go to psych.”

 

When Maggie got home around 5 pm she was trying to decide whether to call Alex or not. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a reason to call her. She could give her the homework and tell her about what they had done during lessons, but the main reason really was to ask her how she was. Then she thought about if that was even a bad thing because she would do exactly the same thing if it was James or Winn that were injured. She shook her head, walking over to the phone and dialing Alex’s number.

“Alex Danvers?”, she heard her voice and couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey, it’s Maggie”, she greeted her. “How’re you doing?”

“Uhm, better I think”, Alex replied hesitating slightly which led Maggie to believe that she might be lying. “But Mom says I’m not allowed to go to the game tomorrow, so Kara can’t either. I’m really sorry.”

“That’s alright, just make sure you feel better soon”, Maggie said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She really did want for Alex to get better soon though.

They talked about school for a bit before agreeing on meeting for lunch on Sunday at Alex’s place and beginning their bio project afterwards.

When they hung up, Maggie felt considerably better than before and was glad to see that her appetite had returned when she prepared dinner for herself and her aunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The next chapter is a lot more fluffy, promise!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weekend: Some Alex/Maggie, some Superfriends.

Sunday morning was the first time that Alex managed to get down the stairs on her own. She was in a general good mood because Maggie would be coming over soon and Alex had been bored to pieces the last three days at home. Now she finally felt like she had acquired some state of usefulness to the outside world again.

After a particularly peaceful family breakfast with tons of French toast, her father took Kara out into the garden to help set up a vegetable patch while her mother allowed Alex to help dry the dishes. Alex hadn’t thought it possible that there would come a time where she would actually ask for that, but here she was.

When noon finally rolled around and the doorbell rang, Alex made her way towards the front door a bit too fast, but she didn’t even care about the sharp pain in her knee when she saw Maggie smiling at her.

“Hey”, Alex greeted her with a grin that she hoped wasn’t too much of a grimace.

“Hey, are you alright?”, Maggie wanted to know at once, looking at her in concern. Alex noticed her dark brown eyes shining slightly in the sunlight.

“Yeah, just a bit over-motivated to have something to do with which my knee seemed to disagree”, she offered as an explanation which made Maggie laugh.

“You’re always all or nothing, aren’t you?”, Maggie stated while coming in and then getting rid of her shoes.

Alex just shrugged at that. She was probably right.

Lunch with Maggie was fun. She was a bit shy with the whole Danvers family at the table at first but warmed up quickly when Eliza and Jeremiah asked her all sorts of questions without ever mentioning her parents which led Maggie to assume that Alex and Kara had told her about the situation at hand. Maggie wasn’t sure about that though because she was treated in such a normal way that she suspected that they might not know the whole reason for her unusual living arrangements after all.

“Your parents are really nice”, Maggie said in a small voice when they set themselves up on Alex’s bed. Alex shot her a glance but didn’t comment on the tone.

“Yeah, they’re mostly great”, she answered, thinking about what Maggie’s parents had done to her but feeling unable to forget the high standards her own mother always held her to. “What is your aunt like?”

Maggie looked up at her with a smile, then replied: “She’s awesome. She kind of makes me feel like it’s okay to be like I am, you know.”

“Well, it is”, Alex said earnestly. “I like the whole Maggie package so far, you know. And everybody who doesn’t, can fuck off.”

“Language Danvers”, Maggie retorted with a grin, trying to ignore the lurch in her stomach that had occurred during Alex’s statement.

“You sound like Kara”, Alex laughed back. “Or my parents for that matter.”

“Oh yeah? Where did you get your filthy mouth from then?”, Maggie asked with raised eyebrows.

“Vicky probably”, Alex replied without thinking while rummaging in a closet until she had procured the book about corys.

“Who’s Vicky?”, Maggie wanted to know in interest.

“Oh, uhm”, Alex stammered, realizing her slip-up. “Old friend back in Midvale.”

“Was he your boyfriend?”, Maggie treaded on carefully as she could tell that it was evidently a touchy subject for Alex.

“Uhm no, my one and only boyfriend so far was an idiot”, Alex said in a careless voice and Maggie’s heart sank. So, Alex was into boys.

“And Vicky is a girl”, Alex went on. “We used to be best friends until we had a big fight and sort of drifted apart.”

She looked much more upset about that than when she had talked about that boyfriend of hers.

“Were you guys more than friends?”, Maggie was bold enough to ask, blushing slightly but not averting her eyes and studying Alex’s face carefully.

“Oh, uhm, no”, Alex replied quickly, looking confused for a moment before changing the subject and saying: “So, what do you know about corys?”

Maggie decided to let Alex off the hook and offered everything she could remember about corys which wasn’t a whole lot, so Alex began to list everything she remembered before they dove into the book together to find out what they had to do to get the corys to mate.

They were laying on bed next to each other pretty closely while reading together and Maggie could actually smell Alex. She smelled a bit like the woods in the summer and Maggie lost track of the text for a minute. Then she was startled into reality again when Kara came bursting through the door holding up some kind of crème announcing that Alex had forgotten to treat her bruises this morning.

“What happened to knocking?”, Alex growled back slightly annoyed because she had flinched out of surprise which had obviously caused her pain. She was now rolling over onto her back to get up carefully and retrieve the crème Kara was still holding up, looking rather guilty.

“James and Winn will come over later by the way”, she said as if to appease her sister. “I’ll go help Mom make brownies now.”

“Thanks Kar”, Alex yelled when Kara had closed the door again. Not that it was necessary to shout for Kara to hear her.

“I’ll go wait outside while you’re putting this on”, Maggie said, getting up from the bed just when Alex plopped back down again, wincing.

“Wait, sorry, but could you maybe help me with that?”, Alex asked in a small voice, her eyes darting nervously between Maggie’s. “I can’t really move that well…”

“Uhm, yeah sure, no problem”, Maggie stuttered in reply, having to blink when Alex smiled thankfully and got rid of her shirt right in front of her. Maggie’s heart was jumping out of her chest and she tried really hard not to look too much. Fortunately, she was distracted by the large bruises on Alex’s body.

“God”, she gasped in shock, kneeling down next to Alex.

“It’s no big deal”, Alex said again, shrugging.

“Are you serious?”, Maggie hissed back, nearly angry now. “Alex, look at yourself.”

“Yeah, I have and hopefully I’ll be back to normal in no time”, Alex replied in a detached sort of voice. “That is if you get a move on and help me with this stuff.”

She handed the crème over to Maggie who shot her a look before starting with the bruise on Alex’s right upper arm. After that she had to move on to Alex’s ribs which meant that she had to lift up her black sports bra slightly to be able to rub the ointment below it. She tried really hard to keep her breathing in check while doing so, hoping that Alex wouldn’t notice anything. When she was done there, she swallowed when she needed to treat the bruise on the front side of Alex’s left hip bone. Maggie could see Alex’s abs flexing while doing so, she seemed to be a bit ticklish. She really really tried not to look, but god those abs. Her fingers were burning by the time she had finished and helped Alex to roll up the leg of her pants to put some of the crème onto her knee.

Alex actually enjoyed the whole procedure much more than when her parents or Kara had put on the stuff for her. Maggie was much more gentle and careful with her and her touch felt nice on Alex’s skin, leaving it prickling slightly. When Maggie was done with her knee, Alex held out her right wrist. Technically, she could really do that herself but if Maggie was already on it, there was no harm in asking her to just finish it up, was there?

Maggie got up from the floor where she had been crouching while treating Alex’s knee and sat down next to her on the bed again before carefully taking Alex’s hand into hers. Alex drew in a sharp breath which led Maggie to mumble a soft “Sorry”, evidently under the impression that she had hurt Alex. Which hadn’t been the case. Alex blinked down onto her hand that was resting in one of Maggie’s, feeling confused. Was it supposed to feel this good? Well, it always had when she had been cuddling with Vicky for example. It was normal to enjoy the touch of your friends, right?

“Okay, you’re all done”, Maggie said, smiling at Alex and putting the ointment on her night stand.

“Thanks”, Alex replied in a hoarse voice. She quickly cleared her throat.

“Are you okay?”, Maggie wanted to know, looking at her in a funny way that somehow had Alex panicking slightly.

“Yeah, let’s get on with the corys”, she shot back quickly, grabbing for the book before realizing she should probably put her shirt back on.

 

An hour later, they had researched that they needed to feed the corys more and decrease the water temperature a few degrees, optimally during a bad weather front with rain to get them to mate. Maggie had joked that you usually didn’t have to wait too long for one of those in Blue Springs, so they had decided to observe the weather forecast for now before starting their project.

“I’m just glad that the corys are at my place and you’ll have to fight your way through the storm to get to me”, Alex grinned when they got up from the bed to make their way down for brownies.

“That sounds like you’re a princess that needs to be saved”, Maggie chuckled back.

“Duh, I’m not really the princess type”, Alex replied and pulled a face, then added as an afterthought: “A warrior princess maybe.”

“Oh, I hear ya”, Maggie agreed. “My childhood hero has always been Robin Hood. I’ve seen the Disney movie hundreds of times. Though not since they… I moved to my aunt.”

Alex shot her a sympathetic look, but figured she wouldn’t say anything as Maggie did apparently not enjoy the subject.

When they came into the living room, Kara and Winn were already halfway through a game of Mario Cart while James sat next to them, cheering them on.

“Hey”, James greeted them and got up to hug Maggie before he moved on to Alex, hovering his arms kind of awkwardly to ask Alex without words if it would be okay if he hugged her too. She smiled and moved in, fortunately James was really careful and let his strong arms barely touch her body. Winn, who had gotten up after beating Kara, wasn’t so considerate and Alex huffed slightly when she was hugged by him as well.

“Hey, leave her in one piece”, Kara shouted from her place on the ground where she was still sulking. “I still need her.”

“Sorry”, Winn mumbled, looking at Alex with slightly panicked eyes.

“You’re okay”, she told him with a wave of the wrong hand, leaving her wincing again.

“How are you?”, James wanted to know, moving to the side to let Alex get a spot on the sofa.

“Much better”, she offered with a smile, but caught Maggie shooting James a look that said otherwise.

“I am, I can walk the stairs on my own now”, Alex exclaimed indignantly. “I bet I’ll be up for our running routine by the end of the week.”

“I sincerely doubt that, Alex”, said her mother who came into the living room with a plate full of still warm brownies. Alex just scowled at her.

“You’re unbelievable”, Maggie muttered, shaking her head.

“Why? Are you afraid you can’t keep up, Sawyer?”, Alex retorted with a teasing grin.

“You wish, Danvers”, Maggie shot back without a blink, then adding towards Eliza: “Thank you, they look amazing.”

“Thank you dear, Kara helped me make them”, Eliza said with a smile towards her younger daughter.

“And probably ate half of the dough before they even got in the oven”, Alex mumbled which earned her a shove from Kara into the shoulder, who apologized at once because she had forgotten Alex’s current state. The string of apologies kept flowing all through the brownie eating, until Alex could stop it by suggesting that they played monopoly.

Around halfway through the game, they held a bathroom break and Kara and Alex went into the kitchen to make hot cocoa for everyone.

“Uhm, Alex?”, Kara said in a small voice while her sister reached up to grab for the mugs.

“Hm?”, Alex hummed to let her know she was listening.

“Are you okay?”, Kara asked, looking over at her with big worried eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay in no time, promise Kara”, Alex replied in a reassuring kind of voice while placing five mugs onto the counter.

“No, I mean because…”, Kara stuttered. “I could hear your hearts beat like crazy before you came down here. Were you upset or something?”

Alex shot Kara a look before hiding behind the refrigerator’s door while searching for milk.

“Yeah, no, we’re fine”, Alex eventually said, emerging from her cover. “We were just working on our project.”

“Okay…”, Kara trailed off, looking confused but not nearly as confused as Alex felt herself. So maybe it wasn’t normal how her body had reacted to Maggie’s touch.

“Can you grab new cocoa from the cellar?”, Alex said in order to end the conversation. Kara looked for a moment as if she wanted to press on, but then she turned and went out of the kitchen.

Alex exhaled loudly, pressing two fingers to the base of her nose. Surely this was just because her body was so vulnerable right now which led her to be more emotional too. And of course, Maggie being the first gay person she had really interacted with would leave her questioning things. This was normal, right?

“Sweety, are you allright?”

Her mother’s voice startled her out of her thought.

“Huh? Yeah, fine”, Alex quickly offered. “Just tired I guess.”

Her mother looked at her for a moment as if to check if her daughter was telling the truth but left it at that when Kara came bouncing back into the kitchen not only with new cocoa but also marshmallows in tow.

While Kara and Alex joined Maggie, Winn and James back on the couch with hot cocoa, their parents excused themselves for a Sunday walk in the woods.

Alex noticed that Kara kept shooting her looks throughout the game. Growing increasingly nervous, she tried to avert Kara’s attention and asked towards James: “Hey, I forgot: How’d the game go? Sorry, we couldn’t make it.”

“No problem, I understand”, James assured her and also Kara, who looked at him apologetically too. “It was okay, we won.”

Alex was confused about his less than enthusiastic response before Maggie added: “He got benched.”

“Why?”, Kara exclaimed indignantly.

“Apparently, I tackled Harold a bit too hard during warm up”, James said with a dry laugh.

“And you’re not white, so…”, Maggie mumbled.

“Yeah, that probably didn’t help either”, James agreed. “Well the bastard earned it. And he’s fine, so no harm done really.”

“Uhm, well, thanks I guess”, Alex said in a small voice, figuring that the others had guessed enough by now anyhow.

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly with them playing Monopoly that was won by a very motivated Winn, leaving the other groaning during the end when they had to continually pay up.

Her parents returned from their walk around six which was the cue for the others to go home for the evening as it was a school day next day. James and Winn gave Alex a careful hug before moving on to Kara which left Alex in front of Maggie.

“Will you be back to school tomorrow?”, Maggie asked her after a moment of silence.

“Yeah, I think so”, Alex replied with a smile.

“Okay good, otherwise I would have had to wish for rain to see you again, Danvers”, Maggie grinned. Alex’s stomach did a strange lurch, but she laughed in reply.

“Pick you up at 8?”, Alex asked after a short pause.

“Yeah, thanks”, Maggie said with a smile. Alex moved in for a hug which seemed to have caught Maggie by surprise because Alex could feel her tense up for a second before relaxing and wrapping her arms carefully around her.

Alex and Kara waved their friends off when they made their way down the driveway towards James’s car and Alex felt really sad that the day was over, though she was looking forward to going to school the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's most likely the last chapter for this week as I'm trying to participate as often as possible in the Sanversweek. After that there will updates here again :)  
> Let me know what you think so far and if there's anything you'd like to see.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex's first week back at school feat. supportive Superfriends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really really sorry for not posting anything these last weeks. My life has gone a bit crazy after the ending of a 6 1/2 years relationship. On top of dealing with that, organizing the move and all, there was an internal reorganization at work that included my team and I had some stuff family wise too. If shit hits, it hits all at once^^  
> But I'm really glad I could finally get into the headspace to write again, so finally a new chapter to this HS AU :)

Alex did not sleep well that night. In addition to her waking up out of pain with every unconscious movement she made, she was also slightly afraid of running into Harold and his gang again. She kept telling herself that she would be fine with her new friends around but they wouldn’t be at her side every single second of the day. Alex knew that with the self-defense techniques her father had taught her, she would be fine if she wasn’t attacked from behind by three people again and as much as she wanted to retaliate, she had decided to keep a low profile to not get into more trouble. Especially because she didn’t want to give Harold a reason to pick on Kara or Maggie.

In the morning she tried to get ready without help which was still proving difficult because of her slightly limited movement options. She made it down to breakfast around ten minutes late and tried to squeeze down some porridge, still feeling nervous but at the same time happy to be able to go back to school. Kara kept shooting her glances all throughout breakfast and finally spoke up again when they were in the car alone.

“You know, I’ll come help you the next time they do something like that, don’t you?”, Kara said, fidgeting with her hands in her lap.

“No, Kara, don’t!”, Alex exclaimed, probably a bit too loud because Kara actually startled. “I don’t want you to risk being outed just for me. It’s much too dangerous and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“But I feel the same way about you”, Kara mumbled, lowering her head down.

“I know, Kar”, Alex sighed. “But you not being human is bigger than me being… bullied. It affects all our lives if that ever gets out there. Yours, mine, Mom’s, Dad’s… We have to make you a priority.”

“But I want you to be a priority, too, Alex”, Kara replied, now looking over at her earnestly. “Ever since I came into your life I’ve caused nothing but trouble for you.”

“That’s not your fault, Kara”, Alex assured her, placing her right hand on her sister’s thigh comfortingly. “It’s not your fault that people are stupid. It’s not your fault that your planet died. And it’s not your fault that you came to live with us. I’m glad that you did. Okay?”

She pulled up next to Winn’s house, looking at her sister intently. Kara finally nodded when Winn got in and climbed into the back with him.

To show Kara that everything was okay, Alex turned up the volume so that she could sing and dance along with Winn. Alex laughed when she saw the huge smiles on their faces looking through the review mirror.

When they got to Maggie, she was already waiting outside and jumped in quickly with a dimply grin on her face.

“Hey”, Alex greeted, unable to hide her own smile.

“Hey”, Maggie said, pulling the door shut. “How’s my favorite patient doing today?”

Maggie hadn’t meant it as a flirty comment but it had kind of sounded like one. Seeing Alex blush slightly, she decided to be more careful and tone it down. She really didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, or worse loose her.

“’m okay”, Alex mumbled, looking over her shoulder before driving back onto the street. “How’re you?”

“Uh, you know, tired”, Maggie provided with a shrug. “I don’t like Mondays.”

“Well, who does?”, Alex grumbled. Actually, Alex had always liked going to school and had never understood people who were beginning to get moody on Sunday evenings. But this whole Harold thing had her changing her mind if her troubled night was anything to go by. She just hoped it would get better over time.

“You know we’ll all be there to protect you, right?”, Maggie stated after a short silence. Alex glanced over to her.

“Not you too…”, Alex sighed. “Just don’t. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

“Alex, are you serious?”, Maggie replied exasperatedly. “You stood up for me your first day at a new school without even knowing me and from what Kara told me, you stand up for her all the time. It’s about time you let other people protect you too.”

Alex opened her mouth, then closed it again, deciding to act busy taking a turn to the right onto the street that lead to the school.

The moment she had pulled into the parking lot and had parked her car, James appeared next to it, smiling broadly at them.

“What is this? I don’t need a protection squad”, Alex grumbled when they gathered around her, walking to the school’s entrance. The others just seemed to ignore her, only Kara shot her a small smile.

Alex had to part with the others as her first period was Physics and neither James nor Maggie were taking it. Kara and Winn disappeared to their class, followed by James who shot Alex a reassuring smile before turning around. Maggie hovered for a bit, looking at Alex intently.

“I’ll see you in a bit. You take Chemistry next period too, don’t you?”, Maggie said, raising her eyebrows in question.

“Uh, yeah”, Alex replied. “Remembered my time table, Sawyer?”

Alex had meant it as a return to their usual banter, but Maggie seemed taken aback for a moment, before coming around and saying: “Well, you were the new girl. In Blue Springs. I remember you walking into the class room last Monday, Danvers. I’m not _that_ forgetful.”

Alex laughed and waved to her, making her way to the direction where she thought the classroom should be located.

 

Physics was uneventful. Having gotten through all her homework, Alex had no trouble keeping up. Sure, Harold was taking this class too, but he wouldn’t actually be able to do anything with a teacher present, so Alex tried to ignore the feeling of unease she felt the whole time. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was sitting in the first row and couldn’t keep her eye on him or if it was just his presence in general.

Either way she was glad when she could leave because her next period was Chemistry and Maggie would be there. It took her longer than usual to pack up her stuff as certain movements were still painful. As she was concentrating to move in a normal way without showing that she was in pain, she let Harold out of her sight for a bit and startled when she heard his voice whisper: “How’re those rips, Danvers?” while he passed her. She wanted to reply something along the lines of “Good, how’s that brain of yours?”, but then remembered she had decided to keep a low profile, so she bit her tongue and just swung her backpack over her shoulder following the rest of the students out of the classroom. Outside she nearly actually ran into Maggie who seemed to have waited for her.

“Whoa, Danvers”, Maggie greeted her with a grin. “Aren’t you supposed to take it easy?”

“I thought I was”, Alex replied, puzzled.

“You were going over the speed limit of this school, Danvers”, Maggie said with a stern face before cracking up laughing, seeing Alex’s confused look.

“Yeah, okay Officer Sawyer”, Alex answered with an eye roll, but couldn’t help the smile that was forming on her face.

“You’re getting a police escort to your next class, Danvers, don’t complain”, Maggie shot back, turning around to cut through the crowds.

“Yes, ma’am”, Alex chuckled, following her but making sure she didn’t bump into anyone.

 

Where ever Alex walked around at school the next few days, at least one member of her new friends group seemed to be by her side. Before and after school and if their time tables allowed it during lunch hour too, they were even all together. Alex was glad about that for several reasons, the first one being that if she had Kara in sight she didn’t have to wonder about what Harold might do to her when she wasn’t there and unable to protect her. Her and Winn were a great source of distraction and fun when interacting and Alex felt herself literally ease up when she saw how happy Kara seemed to be.

Having James around usually meant that Harold wouldn’t even come near them which added to Alex’s feeling of security. And then there was Maggie who was always making sure she was okay, making her laugh with their banter, but also pushing through Alex’s defenses a bit. Alex was a bit irritated by that because she was just not used to someone making her a priority.

One of those situations occurred on Wednesday when she and Maggie walked to their Biology class after lunch together. Someone accidentally bumped into Alex’s shoulder, making her wince in pain and at the same time turn around quickly, her body jumping into fight mode.

“Whoa, Alex, it’s okay”, Maggie quickly assured her, placing a calming hand on her left forearm soothingly. Alex turned around to her, mumbling a quick “sorry” and wanting to go on, but Maggie gently pulled her into a near secluded corner situated between lockers.

“Alex, you okay?”, she asked her.

“Yeah, of course”, Alex replied, her eyes darting shortly to Maggie’s before looking around nervously.

“No, you’re not”, Maggie stated in the softest voice Alex had heard her using yet. “And that’s okay, you know. You don’t have to act like you are great all the time around me, okay?”

Alex snapped her eyes back to Maggie’s before looking down at Maggie’s hand that was still resting on Alex’s forearm. That made Maggie remove it quickly. Alex missed it instantly. It had been grounding her, making her feel safe.

“I’m okay”, Alex said in a rather small voice.

“Alex”, Maggie sighed. “You know I’m your friend if you’re okay or not, right? You don’t have to put everyone else first all the time.”

Alex opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She had rarely felt this seen. She had been so busy protecting Kara all these years, trying to do what her parents silently or not so silently asked of her that she had forgotten how it felt to have someone care for her in that way. It wasn’t that her parents didn’t love her, Alex knew they did, but the whole Kara situation just had them all challenged in a way nobody could have foreseen and as their parents weren’t around them all the time that had made Alex the sister, parent figure, protector and friend all combined in one person and that were a lot of roles to play for a teenager who was a perfectionistic over-achiever to begin with.

“Okay”, Alex finally got out with a small smile towards Maggie. “Thank you.”

“Any time”, Maggie replied, returning the smile.

“You know, it’s hump day, Danvers. So we’re halfway done for this week”, Maggie said evidently trying to cheer Alex up while they moved back into the now somewhat empty corridors, hurrying towards their class room.

“Hump day? Really Sawyer?”, Alex shot back with a snort, shaking her head bemused.

“Really”, Maggie retorted earnestly. “Here I thought you were smart enough to know that us just having had lunch would make this time now exactly the middle of the week. The hump of hump day so to say.”

She grinned when Alex rolled her eyes, unable to stop herself from laughing.

 

The week passed without any bigger issues. Harold made sure to hiss some kind of threat every time he passed her and the others weren’t around, but Alex eased up over time when he didn’t try anything else. She had also kept an eye on Kara and Maggie and even asked James and Winn if they knew about anything happening involving them and Harold, but all seemed to be rather quiet around them. Maybe Alex practicing her will power and keeping her mouth shut every time Harold had harassed her did do some good after all.

Nevertheless, Alex felt a weight lift off her shoulders when she left the school building on Friday afternoon. She cheered up even more when Maggie dropped into the seat next to her in her car, announcing: “Great news Danvers, there’s supposed to be a storm coming this weekend.”

“How is that great news?”, Winn asked incredulously from behind. Even Kara looked confused.

“Because we can finally start breeding the corys, duh”, Alex replied with a grin, making the two in the back laugh. “Wanna come stay at my place, turn the temperature down and feed them?”, she wanted to know from Maggie while maneuvering her car out of the crowded parking lot.

“I’d love to”, Maggie replied. “Are our parents okay with that?”

“Oh yeah, sure”, Alex said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They won’t be around anyway. They usually stay at work late on Fridays, so Kara and I order food and watch movies. You two can stay too, if you want to.”

“I’ll check with my aunt”, Maggie said excitedly, pulling out her phone to send her a text.

“Winn? What about you?”, Kara asked. Alex looked into the review mirror, catching Winn pulling a face.

“Want me to call your parents or do we need to drive over to say hi, so they’ll be okay with you staying with us?”, Alex offered with raised eyebrows. She had never heard him talk about his family before.

“Uhm, foster parents actually”, Winn said in a small voice. “And I’m not sure that this would actually help. Can I just come over and call them from your place? Maybe I’ll get lucky. They’re mostly out on Friday nights.”

“Sure, no problem”, Alex assured him, finally being able to pull out of the school property. Doing so she realized that this movement nearly wasn’t hurting anymore. She smiled to herself, this was already looking to be a great weekend.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie, Winn and James stay over at the Danvers house on Friday night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the amount of time that has passed since the last chapter.  
> I'm still settling in into my new apartment and have a lot going on, but things are looking up, so hopefully I will be able to write more often again soon.  
> Thank you for all your amazing feedback! I really appreciate it and it keeps me motivated to write through all of this :)

Even the entrance of the big Danvers’ house was rather crowded once all four of them had filed in. Alex and Maggie stood near the door waiting while Winn and Kara got rid of their shoes and jackets. Alex glanced sideways at Maggie who seemed as happy as she herself felt at the prospect of a cool science project and a weekend with friends. Suddenly Maggie spotted Alex looking at her and shot her a wide grin. Alex quickly averted her eyes, saying towards her sister and Winn: “Kara, show him where the telephone is so he can call home and ask if it’s okay that he stays late or maybe even sleeps here.”

Winn looked nervous at the prospect of this phone call, so Alex added towards him: “If they want to talk to me or our parents, that can be arranged too. I’ll hold off on the call to my Mom in case they want to speak to her.”

Winn nodded, then laughed when Kara pulled him by the arm towards the living room. Alex watched them move away, scratching the back of her head.

“Did you know about Winn?”, Alex asked Maggie in a quiet voice, while getting rid of her own shoes. Maggie shrugged and nodded.

“Well sort of, let’s just say abnormalities like those are common knowledge around here”, she said with a hollow laugh. “You know, so the _normal_ families can protect themselves.”

Alex looked over at Maggie, she had never heard her use a bitter tone like this. Maggie just looked back at her, her features somewhere between vulnerable and challenging.

“We really ended ourselves up in a backward hellhole here, huh?”, Alex stated in a semi attempt at humor.

“Well, sorry ‘bout not contradicting you”, Maggie replied while hanging up her jacket. “And sorry you ended up in Blue Springs of all places.”

“Well, I’m not”, Alex shot back without a thought. “Or I wouldn’t have met you.”

Maggie turned around to her with a dimply smile on her face. “Same Danvers, same.”

Alex laughed, reaching over to hang up her jacket as well before following Winn and Kara into the living room. She felt giddy and excited, even more so than a minute ago. Unfortunately, it didn’t last too long because she spotted Winn’s expression while he was on the phone.

“Okay, not before tomorrow evening, got it. I have to ask though first”, he mumbled into the phone. “Should I call back? – Okay, then I won’t. – Okay bye.”

He hung up a pained expression on his face.

“What is it?”, Alex asked in concern. “Can’t stay over?”

“Uhm well”, Winn muttered nearly inaudibly. “That… that depends.”

“On?”, Alex pushed in a voice she tried to make soft and calming. She felt like it wasn’t the moment for the playful harshness she often showed times towards him.

“On how long I can stay tomorrow because they’ll be gone the whole day and I don’t have a key and they said I can’t show up before 8 pm if I stay over here”, he rambled in one breath and very fast.

“They didn’t give you a key?”, Kara asked incredulously, looking over to Alex as if to see if she could do anything about it, to fix the problem as she was used to Alex fixing her problems.

Winn just shrugged and shook his head.

“It shouldn’t be a problem, Winn”, Alex assured him. “But let me call my Mom first and check, just so she knows we’ll be a few more people for meals tomorrow, okay?”

Winn nodded, not meeting her eyes.

“Which reminds me”, Alex added towards Maggie. “How long will you be staying?”

“Well, that sort of depends on what we have to do with the corys”, Maggie replied. “And I still have to check with my aunt.”

“I think if we do it right, there’s a chance that they’ll start mating tomorrow or on Sunday”, Alex said after a short break of accessing her knowledge about corys she had updated over the week. “So you should probably be around a lot or at least on call if you wanna study their behavior too, you know to document it. Or I just document it myself, that’s okay too.”

“No, no, I wanna see it!”, Maggie exclaimed quickly. “I mean, if it’s okay that I’m over here that much. You know, for you and your parents and my aunt…”

“Yeah, totally”, Alex confirmed, feeling slightly on edge for reasons unknown to her. There was a small awkward pause before Alex cleared her throat and walked to pick up the phone to call her mother.

It took a few rings before the lab assistant picked up and forwarded her to her mother’s lab phone. It rang so many times there that Alex was almost positive that she wouldn’t pick up when finally, she heard the familiar “Dr. Danvers, Rasmussen Labs”.

“Hey Mom, it’s Alex, sorry to bother you”, she greeted her. “It won’t take long, I just wanted to ask if it would be okay if Winn and Maggie stayed over. Oh, and maybe James too?” Alex looked around at the others who all nodded vigorously, especially Kara. Alex decided to investigate that later.

“Of course, sweety, no problem”, her mother replied, sounding a bit stressed but sincere. Alex suspected she was just busy at work, so she added quickly. “Maggie would maybe have to stay a lot over here this weekend because of the cory project I told you about. And would it be okay if Winn stayed until after dinner tomorrow? His parents will be out the whole day.”

She had decided to tell her mother about Winn’s parents in a more private and calm moment, mostly to make Winn feel more comfortable.

“Sure, maybe remind your Dad about that before he goes grocery shopping tomorrow”, her mother said, Alex could hear a smile in her voice but was not sure what had caused it. Most likely not something Alex had said or done.

“Okay, great, thanks Mom”, she answered, knowing that it was best not to disturb her mother too long while she was at work. “See you later.”

“Take care, Alex”, her mother ended the call. Alex knew that this didn’t mean she should take care of herself but of everyone else and she took it as such.

“Okay, all good”, she announced to the room, seeing Winn’s face visibly light up in relief. “I believe you’re up next, Saywer”, she added, holding the phone out to Maggie.

“And after that it’s me to call pizza”, Kara said, one finger raised in the air to undermine the importance of that call.

“You mean call _for_ pizza?”, Winn asked, looking confused while Maggie and Alex laughed.

“The pizza place thingy”, Kara clarified with an eyeroll.

“You would be the only person I know to actually talk to pizza though probably”, Winn chuckled which earned him a fake glare from Kara and agreeing mumbles from Maggie and Alex.

When Maggie was done talking to her aunt, she couldn’t even announce that it was okay that she stayed before Kara had ripped away the phone to order pizza.

Maggie blinked, looking puzzled for a moment at Kara’s antics which made Alex chuckle and say: “You’ll get used to it. If she wants something, she can be really forward and persuasive.”

“Well, I must say… I didn’t see it coming”, Maggie stated, watching Kara ordering around 7 pizzas.

“That’s why it’s so effective”, Alex explained knowingly. “It’s like her secret superpower.”

Maggie laughed while Winn tried to make Kara order a pizza Hawaii.

“Okay, so two questions, Sawyer”, Alex started, drawing Maggie’s full attention back to her again. “Firstly: Are you pro or con pizza Hawaii?”

“Oh, definitely con”, Maggie shot back. “That is not what Italians had in mind while creating pizza. Not that pizza here is really like the Italian one, but still.”

“Okay, that was the correct answer”, Alex said with an approving smile. “Secondly: If you could have any superpower, what would you choose?”

“Huh, that’s a tough one”, Maggie replied, looking thoughtful. “Maybe becoming invisible or super strength, but I’d want to use it to help others. Flying would be cool too, I guess.”

“Good choices”, Alex said. She totally got the wanting to be invisible part sometimes and she suspected why Maggie felt a need to be not seen all the time. It could not be fun being the only not straight kid in Blue Springs. She also knew that Maggie was a good person that made helping others a priority, so the super strength made sense too. It was kind of absurd that they were in a room together with an alien that had two of the superpowers Maggie had just named.

“What about you?”, Maggie ripped Alex out of her thoughts.

“When I was younger I wanted to be able to read minds”, Alex answered honestly. “But I’m not sure I could handle what I would get to see or hear, so I’d go for healing every possible injury or sickness.”

“Huh, that’s a very good choice too”, Maggie said with a smile. “And very you.”

“What’s that supposed to –“, Alex began before Kara cut in: “Can Maggie call James now?”

“Already sent him a text”, Maggie said, shooting Alex a sideway glance that told Alex that she wasn’t the only one suspecting that Kara might have a crush on James. Well, if Alex thought about it, he looked pretty good and he was a nice guy. She had just never considered him like that. There had never really been a boy yet that she had had anything more but amicable feelings for.

“So, cory feeding time?”, Maggie wanted to know.

“Huh? Oh yeah, sure”, Alex said, beginning to hurry up the steps then slowing down when she felt pain in her knees, hoping Maggie hadn’t noticed.

Unfortunately, she had.

“You should still take it easy, Danvers”, Maggie said when they had reached Alex’s room.

“I’m fine”, Alex assured her, sounding almost annoyed while closing the door behind them.

“Sure”, Maggie murmured with a head shake, but followed Alex’s example and let the subject rest for the time being.

Alex let Maggie feed the corys while instructing her about the quantity, then they just sat next to each other in front of the tank, quietly watching the fish plowing their mouths through the ground to suck in the food.

“They are pretty adorable”, Maggie said after a few minutes of silence.

“Totally”, Alex agreed. “The panda corys are the cutest.”

“Huh, who would have thought, Alex Danvers, a softie”, Maggie teased which made Alex roll her eyes laughing.

“You said they were adorable, I just backed you up, because you know, that what friends do”, Alex defended herself.

“Very chivalrous of you”, Maggie chuckled, softly shoving Alex’s shoulder with her own. Alex smiled over at her in return, feeling that giddy happy feeling again. Alex didn’t like most people in Blue Springs but she was really glad she had gotten to know Maggie. And James and Winn of course.

Maggie just smiled back, her dimples becoming deeper by the second and Alex was almost glad when she heard the doorbell although she wouldn’t have minded being able to look at Maggie’s smile for a while longer.

 

When Alex and Maggie made their way down the stairs, they were witnessing a ramble of Kara explaining to James that she wasn’t at all disappointed that he wasn’t the pizza delivery guy. Alex just chuckled and rolled her eyes at her sister’s antics before giving James a short hug and waving him inside. They assembled in the living room, lounging on the sofa and floor, where Alex could make out the exact moment that Kara heard the pizza delivery guy getting near the house. She obviously couldn’t run to the door yet, so she just sat on the edge of the couch which made Alex get up and go get the money. When the doorbell rang, Kara opened the door to reveal not a pizza delivery guy but girl that Alex had never seen before. She looked young – about her own age – but Alex was pretty sure she didn’t go to their local high school. Kara had already taken the pizza and made her way back to the living room, leaving Alex to sort out the payment.

“Is she hungry much?”, the girl – Jenny if her name tag was to be believed – said good naturedly.

“Oh, this was her being civil”, Alex replied with a chuckle, looking at the girl expectantly. The girl just smiled back for a few seconds.

“Uhm, how much do I owe you?”, Alex finally asked when the girl didn’t seem to grasp what she was waiting for.

“55 dollars and 60 cents”, Jenny replied, then added with a smile. “I’ll knock off the 60 cents because I like your eyes.”

Alex was puzzled for a moment, but then handed over 60 dollars and told the girl to keep the change, figuring she would sort it out on her own with the 60 cents.

“Thanks”, Jenny said with a wide smile. “See you around…?” The girl looked at Alex expectantly.

“Oh, Alex”, Alex quickly replied, getting that Jenny had wanted to know her name.

“Alex”, Jenny repeated, turning around but looking at her for a few additional seconds while making her way back to her delivery car. Alex closed the door, feeling slightly confused.

“She was flirting with you”, she heard Maggie’s voice from behind her, making her spin around a bit too quickly for her knees’ liking.

“She was?”, Alex asked, putting two and two together and noticing that Maggie was probably right. Maggie was leaning against the door frame of the living room, a strange expression on her face.

“Oh, she definitely was”, she assured her, crossing her arms but smiling.

“Why? Do you know her? Did she do that with you too?”, Alex wanted to know, making her way over towards Maggie.

“Ha, no, but she wasn’t very subtle, Alex”, Maggie explained with a laugh, still not uncrossing her arms.

“Huh”, Alex only replied, still feeling confused. She didn’t particularly like it whenever guys had been flirting with her. Feeling uncomfortable, she said: “Let’s get in there and eat some pizza before Kara finishes all on her own.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, then the delivery girl could come back”, Maggie shot back, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

“Why? Do you like her?”, Alex wanted to know in interest. Maggie was behaving slightly off but Alex couldn’t exactly place what it was. Maggie laughed, saying: “The question is more, do _you_ like _her_?”

“I – uhm – what?”, Alex stuttered, now completely lost. Maggie just looked at her, apparently waiting for another reaction.

“I mean, I think she’s nice?”, Alex offered weakly. “But I definitely don’t like her that way.”

She really hoped that would put an end to their conversation.

“Okay”, Maggie just replied with a smile, turning around to reenter the living room, leaving Alex even more confused out in the hallway. What had that been about? She shook her head, then followed Maggie inside to secure herself at least a bit of pizza before her sister would finish up everything on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm looking forward to taking this further :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep over time for the gang...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally managed to write another chapter. I don't know how my life became this busy, but I kinda like it. I will still try to update here though :)  
> Just know that I'm a big soccer fan and with the World Cup, pride and my best friend's wedding coming up, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to write - but I promise I will try! Hope you enjoy the new chapter.

Everybody managed to get enough pizza although Kara ate around three all on her own.

“Can we make popcorn now?”, Kara asked the moment she had finished up her last slice.

“Is she serious?!”, James wanted to know, looking at Alex incredulously. Alex only shrugged with a nod, grinning slightly when she saw Kara’s cheeks turning red.

“It’s fine, we can do it later”, Kara mumbled, grabbing for a cushion to place in her lap and fidget with.

“I could rather do with some fruits”, Maggie stated, placing one hand on her belly and leaning back into the couch lazily.

Winn narrowed his eyes and eyed her suspiciously.

“Was that sarcasm?”, he finally asked after a short pause.

“Uhm, no”, Maggie said, looking slightly confused. “I kinda need something fresh like vegetables, salad or fruit after a big meal like that. Helps the digestion and all.”

“There was pepper and tomatoes on the pizza”, Alex teased, but got up and navigated her way through her friends to go to the kitchen. She browsed through the fridge and shot a glance towards the fruit bowl before shouting into the living room: “We have mango, apples, oranges and avocado.” She paused. “Is avocado a fruit or a vegetable?”

She could hear the others laugh and then start a discussion about exactly that question. Not having gotten any reaction, Alex grabbed for a popcorn bag to microwave it and jumped slightly when she heard Maggie say: “It’s a fruit actually. And we could make guacamole if you have some chips to go with it.”

“If we have chips? Is that even a question?”, Alex shot back with a grin. “Do you know how to make guacamole?”

“I do”, Maggie said with a chuckle.

“I’m not sure I like it though. The guacamole my dad always brings from the store for the tacos is gross”, Alex admitted with a grimace.

“Well that’s because it’s probably the artificial stuff”, Maggie stated. “Have you read the ingredients to check if there is even avocado in what they call guacamole?”

“Uhm, no?”, Alex replied looking at Maggie apologetically. “I usually don’t read those a lot. But you sound like you’re an expert on ingredients. So I’ll be looking forward to tasting your home made guacamole, chef Sawyer.”

Maggie grinned and grabbed for the avocado in the Danvers’ fruit bowl.

“The chef needs to be properly equipped to conjure up the guacamole that will change your life, Danvers”, Maggie bantered on.

“Sure, what do you need?”, Alex wanted to know, looking over her shoulder while shoving the popcorn bag into the microwave.

“Well a bowl, a knife and a spoon for starters”, she replied, throwing the avocado playfully back and forth between both of her hands.

“Cutlery is in that drawer, I’ll get down a bowl”, Alex explained, pointing towards the other end of the kitchen before reaching up to open a cupboard herself.

“Think I’m too short?”, Maggie said while moving over to the indicated drawer.

“I don’t think that, it’s a fact, Sawyer”, Alex chuckled, squeezing a finger into Maggie’s side playfully.

“Rude, Danvers”, Maggie replied, then suddenly exclaiming: “Hey, you have an avocado cutter!”

“We have a what?”, Alex wanted to know, showing up behind Maggie to look over her shoulder into the drawer where Maggie was grabbing for something that in Alex’s opinion looked a bit like a parrot.

“An avocado cutter”, Maggie repeated. “Look, you have a knife that can’t cut through your skin here” – she pointed to the end of the tool that looked like the beak – “and with that thing you can press into the stone, turn it and get rid of it easily” – she indicated the round part that looked like the head of the parrot – “and with that end you can just slide through the avocado to cut it in pieces” – she presented the part of the tool that looked like an egg slicer and in Alex’s eyes like the wing.

Alex just blinked.

“Look, I’ll show you”, Maggie laughed at Alex’s expression. And sure enough, Maggie was done with the avocado in seconds.

“Impressive”, Alex commented. “I have to remember that if I actually like that stuff.”

“Have you never eaten avocado before?”, Maggie wanted to know incredulously.

“I think my mom puts it into the salad sometimes”, Alex replied vaguely which made Maggie shake her head, looking bemused. “Do you have onions and tomatoes and salt and pepper? A bit of something citrusy or sour crème would finish it up nicely too.”

Alex searched through the fridge again and presented all the asked ingredients, then watched Maggie as she expertly cut the tomato and the onion into very small pieces before putting them into the bowl with the avocado, then adding a bit of sour crème, salt and pepper at the end. She mushed everything before trying a bit with her fingertip and nodding her approval.

“All done”, Maggie announced proudly. “Try some.”

“Without chips?”, Alex wanted to know, looking at the green sauce wearily.

“Yeah, Danvers”, Maggie replied with a playful eyeroll. “It won’t kill you. Just put your finger in and taste a bit. I’ll write the introduction to our cory breeding report if you don’t like it.”

“You got yourself a deal”, Alex said, reaching out to dip her pinky finger into the guacamole, then stopping.

“What’s wrong? Wanna wash your hands first?”, Maggie asked with a grin.

“I uhm…”, Alex stuttered, then moved towards the drawer, but Maggie moved to block her way.

“No, what’s up Danvers? Spit it out”, Maggie pushed on, her face between a grin and worry.

Alex huffed annoyed, looked sideways as if to consider her options.

“Okay, fine”, she finally said. “I don’t like mushy stuff on my hands, okay?”

Alex looked at Maggie waiting for her to laugh, but she only grinned proudly.

“What?”, Alex wanted to know, confused about the reaction.

“I knew it”, Maggie replied, still grinning. Alex’s brows furrowed. “Ever since you insisted that I handled the jelly like stuff in chemistry the other day.”

“Very perceptive, Sherlock”, Alex grumbled, turning away to get the popcorn out of the microwave and into a bowl since Kara had just shouted from the living room wanting to know what was taking them so long.

When Alex headed for the door with the popcorn in hand, Maggie blocked her again, still grinning.

“Guacamole first, Danvers”, Maggie explained because Alex looked confused again. Alex just wanted to move back to the drawer to get herself a spoon, when Maggie dove her own index finger into the bowl, presenting it to Alex’s face with one eyebrow raised in challenge. Alex laughed shortly, then shook her head amused before moving in and taking Maggie’s finger into her mouth to try the green sauce. It actually tasted nothing like the gross stuff her father sometimes brought, but very good. So good in fact that Alex was pretty sure she didn’t necessarily need chips with it. Her stomach even did a funny somersault when she removed her mouth from around Maggie’s finger.

“And?”, Maggie asked when Alex opened her eyes again, not even having realized she had closed them shortly in the first place. Alex looked back into Maggie’s eyes that were shining in the rather dim light of the kitchen.

“Okay, it really is good”, Alex admitted, clearing her throat because her voice had sounded slightly hoarse again. Maybe she was developing a cold or something. Blue Springs wasn’t exactly the California weather she was used to.

“Ha, see”, Maggie exclaimed, apparently very pleased with Alex’s verdict.

“Where’s the popcorn?”, Kara suddenly yelled from the living room.

“Coming”, Alex shouted back, then whispered to Maggie. “Wait here, I’ll get us some chips for the guacamole.”

“Not into sharing today, Danvers?”, Maggie chuckled with raised eyebrows.

“I’m sharing it with you, duh”, Alex just replied before leaving the kitchen with a grin.

Maggie looked after her, exhaling deeply. What the hell had made her do that finger thing? It might be something friends could do together but that had definitely not been Maggie’s reason behind it. She closed her eyes. She really had to keep herself in check around Alex. She didn’t want to have a second Eliza deal, even though Maggie was pretty sure Alex would not set her homophobic brother, let alone the whole town on her for it. Maggie shook her head, sighing. She really shouldn’t have done it. Now she knew exactly how it felt to have Alex’s lips on her and she wanted to feel that all over her body. She swallowed, trying to ignore the tugging feeling in her lower belly. No, she had to put a stop to this.

 

When Alex returned with a big bag of chips and an equally big grin around five minutes later, Maggie had somewhat recovered and smiled back at her.

“What took you so long? Did you eat a whole bag of chips on your own?”, Maggie greeted her teasingly.

“No, but I dropped one off for the others and had to fight Kara’s questions off on what is taking us so long”, Alex explained with an eyeroll.

“Ha, what did you say?”, Maggie wanted to know while Alex put the chips into another bowl.

“That it involves more food for her”, Alex replied. “That satisfied her enough to talk to James again.”

Alex grinned at Maggie who grinned back.

“So you think she has a crush on him?”, Maggie asked, accepting some chips to put into the guacamole.

“Oh yes”, Alex agreed, closing the kitchen door to not be overheard. Which was kind of a giveaway with Kara’s superhearing. Hopefully she was focused enough on James. “Do you know anything about his side on things?”

Maggie shook her head, shrugging.

“I could try to investigate”, she said when Alex looked thoughtful. “Right now I’m more concerned with you and the guacamole.” Alex grinned and Maggie quickly added: “You know, before the others come and steal it.”

“Huh, not into sharing today, Sawyer?”, Alex repeated Maggie’s words from earlier. Maggie chuckled and said nothing. She wouldn’t mind at all sharing the guacamole but she had to admit that she definitely liked having Alex to herself.

 

They joined the others half an hour later. Alex had simply thrown another bag of popcorn into the microwave while Maggie had cut an orange so they wouldn’t come empty handed after Alex’s promise of more food for Kara. Alex could swear that James gave Maggie a strange look while Kara and Winn were discussing movie options, but maybe she had just imagined it because a moment later he shouted: “No, not another musical!”

“Where do you watch musicals?”, Alex wanted to know with a laugh.

“I have two sisters”, he sighed as if this explained everything.

“So? I’m a girl and I don’t like them either”, Alex stated.

“Well you’re… different”, James said with an apologetic grin. Alex only raised her eyebrows at that strange comment before adding to Kara and Winn: “A Disney movie is practically a musical, they sing all the time.”

“You don’t like Disney movies, Danvers?”, Maggie exclaimed, feigning shock. “And I thought we could be friends.”

Alex laughed, then said in a low voice while scrunching her nose: “I do enjoy a few of them. Robin Hood is pretty great.”

“Robin Hood it is”, James announced loudly, making Alex look panicked. “Oh come on, that’s a great settlement.”

Winn and Kara finally agreed, so they took their places on the sofa (Winn and Maggie), before the sofa (Kara and Alex) and on the armchair (James). As Alex was really too full, she wasn’t complaining that Kara took all the popcorn for herself. But she was trying to find a comfortable position on the floor, not so much for her legs but for her filled up stomach. She finally settled on leaning against Maggie’s legs, looking up at her for a moment to check if that was okay. Receiving a short smile, Alex rested half against, half between Maggie’s shins for the rest of the movie, nearly falling asleep once because she felt so much at ease with having her sister and her new friends near.

At first, Maggie’s legs had tingled when and because Alex had leant against them. Halfway through the movie they had begun to tingle because of the blood loss, but Maggie couldn’t bring herself to move. It felt too nice to feel Alex against her legs like this. She knew she shouldn’t take advantage of the situation like this but she couldn’t help herself. Apparently her conscious thoughts kept being overwritten by hormones. Hopefully it was just hormones and not more.

When the movie was over, Alex made them all help put away and clean up the mess they had made before announcing: “Okay, the boys can take the sleeping couch in the basement, Maggie can sleep in my room.”

“Uhm, you sure that your mom is okay with that?”, Maggie said in a rather small voice.

“Yeah, why not?”, Alex asked, confused.

“Does she know about me?”, Maggie wanted to know in return.

“Know what? She knows we’re friends and she never had a problem with me having friends over”, Alex replied. Maggie thought it was kind of nice that Alex didn’t grasp what she was trying to say. It was refreshing to have someone that treated her in such a normal way. Maggie closed her eyes before clarifying: “Does she know I’m gay, Alex?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I didn’t tell her”, Alex said. “Should I have told her? I just thought that it wasn’t important enough to mention. Not that you’re not important of course. But it’s your decision who to tell, you know?”

Maggie grinned awkwardly. Why did Alex have to be so perfect?

“You’re fine”, Maggie tried to let Alex off the hook. “I’m just not sure if she would like me sleeping in your room when she obviously doesn’t wanna have the boys in Kara’s.”

“But we’re just friends”, Alex mumbled, furrowing her brows, making that adorable crinkle appear again. “But I think I know what you mean.”

Maggie exhaled in relief.

“How about we all sleep in the basement and Maggie is the buffer between the boys and us?”, Kara suddenly suggested. Alex looked at the others before considering the idea. It sounded like a solid one. The boys could still use the sleeping couch and they could move down Alex’s and Kara’s mattress and have an actual pajama party.

“Okay”, Alex finally agreed. “Kara, help the boys move our mattresses down, Maggie can come with me preparing the beddings.”

 

“Thank you”, Maggie mumbled, standing next to Alex who was standing on a stool, pulling down blankets from a closet in the basement.

“For what?”, Alex asked absentmindedly handing her down a few sheets.

“For not being weird about… me”, Maggie tried to voice her feelings. She wasn’t really good at that at all.

“Why would I be weird?”, Alex wanted to know, blinking down at her.

“That’s exactly what I mean, you’re just not”, Maggie chuckled.

“Uhm, okay”, Alex replied before jumping off the stool and shutting the closet door when James and Winn came in carrying Kara’s mattress.

Insisting that she could handle Alex’s mattress with James, Kara went back up with him, leaving Winn and Maggie preparing the beds while Alex wrote her mom a note explaining about them all sleeping in the basement. She supposed it wouldn’t be such a great thing if her mom went to check their bedrooms and they were empty.

After everyone got changed in one of the three bathrooms in the house, they settled into their night camp. James and Winn were a bit elevated on their sleeping couch, next to it they had placed Alex’s queen size mattress that was occupied by Maggie and Alex and at the end sat Kara’s smaller mattress that she had to herself. They laid like this chatting away happily in different constellations before everyone got rather sleepy at some point and they just became more quiet over time.

Maggie was pretty sure she was the only one that was still awake, judging by the even breaths of the others when she heard Alex mumble next to her: “You smell really nice…”

Okay, what was that supposed to mean? It made Maggie smile stupidly all the same. She wasn’t sure when and if she would be able to fall asleep with this giddy feeling that simple sentence had caused in her stomach.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically more Sanvers sleep over fluff :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again it took me so long for the next one. Thanks to all who still bear with me :)

Maggie shot up from the sheets panting heavily. She looked around herself into the darkness trying to make sense of where she was until she finally remembered about the pajama party at the Danvers’ place. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to calm herself. She wasn’t sure if she had had a nightmare, she couldn’t remember. Then she heard a thunder growling loudly above. Okay, so that was most likely the reason of her waking up. Ever since she had been thrown out by her parents during a heavy thunderstorm, she had developed a solid dislike if not more for them.

“Maggie, you okay?”, she heard Alex mumble next to her, squinting into the darkness to see Alex’s face look up at her from between her chaotic red hair. She couldn’t help but smile.

“Ya, go back to sleep Danvers”, she whispered while carefully extracting herself from the sheets. “Bathroom”, she added when Alex looked confused.

Maggie made her way up the stairs trying to be as quiet as possible. When she left the bathroom on the ground floor again, she made a detour into the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. She nearly dropped the glass when another thunder shook the house.

“Did you just squeak because of a thunder?”, she heard Alex’s voice from the door and span around.

“No?”, Maggie replied unconvincingly.

“Huh, here I thought you were a badass like me”, Alex said with a chuckle, joining Maggie leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Yeah well”, Maggie mumbled, realizing that she was shaking slightly.

“Hey, you okay?”, Alex asked with a more serious approach.

“Fine, Alex”, she said quickly. She had probably sounded a bit too defensive if Alex’s face when she glanced over at her was anything to go by.

Alex got herself a glass of milk from the fridge before saying carefully: “You know, you can talk to me. I’m not like them.”

“Like who?”, Maggie wanted to know, glancing at Alex again, who was now standing opposite of her.

“The rest of this stupid town”, Alex clarified. “Well, minus the people in the basement.”

Maggie couldn’t help but grin.

“Wanna join me on the couch?”, Alex suggested, grabbing the milk bottle and some cookies.

“How can I say no to triple chocolate?”, Maggie said with a weak smile, following Alex into the living room.

“So, wanna tell me what’s going on?”, Alex wanted to know when they had both filled up their glasses with milk and were each dipping a cookie into them.

“I don’t like thunderstorms as you probably noticed”, Maggie began weakly.

“Is there a reason for that?”, Alex simply asked, looking at Maggie expectantly with a rather soft expression that made Maggie’s defences crumble in nanoseconds.

“Well… uhm”, Maggie tried to put into words what she had never told anyone else before. “The day I had to… move to my aunt, there was a massive thunderstorm too.”

“What happened that day?”, Alex asked in a low voice while handing her over another cookie as if she knew that Maggie could use something to hold on to.

“I got kicked out by my parents because I’m gay”, Maggie said quickly as if to get it over with. “I’m sure you know the rest of the story already.”

“Uhm, actually I don’t”, Alex replied. “And even if I knew it, as it is your story, I’d rather hear it from you.”

Maggie looked up directly into Alex’s eyes. She had gotten to see Alex’s softer side a few times already but she hadn’t expected her to use exactly the words it needed to make Maggie talk.

“Well, I uhm…”, Maggie started, then stopped. Why was it that hard? It was only Alex. Who had never once given her a reason not to trust her, who treated her in the most normal way to the point of it being a bit annoying when she didn’t get how Maggie was different and how that could complicate things. “I used to be best friends with Eliza Wilkie.”

“Wait, like the sister of Harold Wilkie?”, Alex interrupted.

“The very same”, Maggie said with a short nod. “We hung out in her basement a lot, watched movies, pretty much spent every free minute together. And uhm, with how she treated me sometimes, especially when we were alone, I thought she liked me back like that too.”

Maggie swallowed. Everything in her shouted to stop talking but when she looked at Alex she just kept going.

“So, on Valentine’s day I put a card in her locker to ask her to the dance”, she continued, hearing her own voice shake. “Well she did not feel the same way apparently. Because she showed that card to her parents. And then they called my parents. And my Dad threw me out into this massive thunder storm with nothing, not even a few dimes to call someone. So I walked to the other end of Blue Springs to my aunt wishing I wouldn’t be struck by lightning and at the same time wishing I would be.” She laughed drily.

Alex was silent for a few seconds. Then she put her own glass onto the coffee table before taking Maggie’s and putting it aside too. Maggie looked at her, confused, when Alex just slid closer and pulled her into a tight hug. Maggie stiffened for a moment before giving in and hugging her back, trying her hardest not to start crying. She couldn’t remember when was the last time that anyone had hugged her like that.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Maggie”, Alex whispered into her ear. Maggie only shrugged, not trusting her voice.

She didn’t know how long they stayed in that hug, but she felt herself calm down eventually. When she heard Alex wince slightly, Maggie pulled back.

“You should have said that your ribs hurt, Alex”, she exclaimed in a whisper.

“They’re not hurting”, Alex shot back far too quickly.

“Yeah right”, Maggie replied with an eyeroll and a grin. Alex chuckled.

The thunderstorm had mainly passed, Maggie could hear it grumble far away.

“Hey, you wanna go see if the corys started breeding yet?”, Alex wanted to know in an excited whisper that made Maggie smile broadly.

“It’s the middle of the night, Danvers”, she said, raising an eyebrow in question.

“I know, they usually start at night”, Alex explained, getting up from the couch. That hadn’t been exactly what Maggie had meant by that comment but she wasn’t gonna rip Alex of the possibility to pursue her project in the middle of the night. She was pretty sure nothing would be able to stop her anyway now.

“Nerd”, Maggie only mumbled while following her upstairs.

“Sorry, you ended up with me on this project, Sawyer”, Alex shot back in a playful whisper, glancing back at Maggie with a grin.

“Well, I’m not”, Maggie replied with an honest smile.

“I knew you’d like the corys too”, Alex said with a wide smile, apparently not grasping at all what Maggie had meant. Maggie only chuckled and shook her head.

When they had entered Alex’s room, Alex threw over two pillows and motioned for Maggie to sit on one of them in front of the tank while she rummaged around in a drawer of her desk. After half a minute she came back with a flashlight, sat down next to Maggie and then carefully let the beam of light slide through the tank.

“Hm, I can’t see any eggs yet”, she concluded after a minute that Maggie had taken as an excuse to look at Alex. “But they’re definitely showing mating behavior. Look, the smaller ones are the males and they’re following the females around.”

Maggie drew her gaze away from Alex to look into the tank as well. While doing so she had to shuffle closer so that their shoulders brushed. The moment that happened, Alex looked over with a bright smile.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”, Alex said beaming brighter than the flash light in her right hand before averting her eyes back to the tank again.

“Nerd”, Maggie chuckled again.

“Ran out of names to call me?”, Alex replied with a cheeky grin. shoving her shoulder into Maggie’s which made her stomach lurch. There were several names Maggie could think of that she would like to call Alex. No, she had to get her act together, this was not like that.

They sat there on the floor talking in whispers, occasionally checking on the corys and the next thing Maggie knew was that she was gently poked into her right shoulder. She opened her eyes, confused and looked into a friendly smiling face of a blonde woman.

“You must be Maggie”, she said in a low voice. “Sorry to wake you like that sweetie, but I thought you might wanna move down to your beds again.”

“Nice to meet you”, Maggie mumbled, getting up from the floor. The way her neck hurt, she had not been laying on a pillow. Looking down into her lap, she saw that Alex’s pillow of choice was Maggie’s leg. She panicked slightly, looking back up to Misses Danvers who was busy trying to wake up Alex.

“Alex, did you fall asleep again?”, Maggie heard her say to her daughter. “Come on, move down to your beds. It will be much more comfortable.”

“Maggie is comfy”, Alex grumbled, trying to shake her mother’s arm away. Maggie looked up at Misses Danvers with wide and panicked eyes but she only seemed bemused and was gently dragging at Alex’s upper arm. Keen on getting out of the situation with a sleepy Alex in her lap, Maggie grabbed Alex’s other arm and together they guided her up into a sitting position.

“Hmph”, Alex only stated but not refusing to get up off the floor. Maggie let go of her quickly and let Misses Danvers lead her daughter down the stairs, following while trying to calm down her breathing. This was looking bad. She knew they hadn’t done anything and that their relationship was nothing else but a friendship but Alex’s mother didn’t know that. But she also didn’t know yet that Maggie was gay either, so for the moment it probably didn’t look too bad. But she was sure to find out at some point and then what?

Maggie waited until Misses Danvers had tucked Alex in before crawling back into bed too.

“Thank you, dear”, Misses Danvers was whispering towards Maggie who looked confused because she didn’t exactly know what she was being thanked for. Apparently Alex’s mother wasn’t expecting a reply because she left with a smile, closing the door behind her.

Maggie was still breathing pretty fast, her heart pounding against her chest. She was wide awake now.

“Maggie?”, Alex mumbled next to her.

“Hm?”, Maggie hummed in recognition.

“Are you okay?”, Alex wanted to know.

“Sure, why?”, Maggie replied, forcing herself to breathe more shallowly.

“You sound as scared as with the thunderstorm earlier”, Alex whispered back.

“I’m not scared of thunderstorms”, Maggie shot back. “Go back to sleep, Danvers, I’m fine.”

Sure, now had to be the time Alex finally opened her eyes. She hadn’t done that the whole way down.

“What’s up?”, she inquired and Maggie had to hold back a frustrated groan.

“Tomorrow Alex, we don’t wanna wake the others”, Maggie said, changing tactics. Alex might be sleepy enough to have forgotten everything in the morning.

“Kay”, Alex answered after a moment’s hesitation. “Night, Maggie.”

“Night, Alex”, Maggie whispered, exhaling in relief.

 

They were woken in the morning by Kara actually bouncing out of bed because Misses Danvers had announced that breakfast would be ready in 15 minutes. Kara was out of the room before the others had even moved, but came back a moment later to make sure everyone was waking up. Most likely because she didn’t want them to cause any delays in getting breakfast.

Winn and James were her first victims. When they were finally getting up, Kara was moving over to Alex and Maggie, but Alex cut her little sister off with a slightly annoyed: “We’ll be up in time for breakfast, Kara.”

“Okay”, Kara only said with a bright smile, apparently used to Alex’s grumbly demeanor in the morning. Maggie found it rather endearing.

“Not a morning person, Danvers?”, Maggie teased with a grin.

“I used to be when I could go surfing”, Alex mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“I would love to see you surf some time”, Maggie replied with a smile.

“Uhm, I don’t think that’s gonna happen around here”, Alex said with a laugh.

“Probably not”, Maggie had to admit. “But maybe once your ribs are okay again, the morning run will get you up?”

“For sure”, Alex agreed, sitting up and stretching with a wide yawn.

“Did you sleep at all after we moved down again?”, Alex wanted to know after a short pause.

Okay, so unfortunately Alex did remember last night’s events.

“Yeah, of course”, Maggie said in a tone that she hoped sounded confident and careless.

“Okay. So wanna tell me what was wrong then?”, Alex pressed on in a soft tone. So apparently Maggie wasn’t gonna get out of that.

“Well…”, she started, hesitating. “You slept on me, Danvers.”

“Oh, sorry if that made you uncomfortable”, Alex apologized at once. “I just can’t remember falling asleep at all.”

“No, you’re fine, I didn’t mind that”, Maggie calmed her down at once. “It’s just that uhm… I don’t want your mother to, I don’t know, think we were doing… something.”

Alex looked puzzled for several seconds until she finally seemed to grasp what Maggie was talking about.

“Oh”, she said, the adorable crinkle forming between her eyebrows. Maggie was trying to read her expression. She wasn’t sure if Alex looked confused or was trying to find a solution.

“I don’t think she has a problem with you being gay”, Alex added after several moments of thought. “My parents are very open with that. My mom even gave me both versions of the sex talk – double the time of embarrassment. Not fun, I can tell you.”

Maggie had to laugh at that and Alex grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. She felt a bit more reassured, but still slightly uneasy as they made their way up to breakfast.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some adorable Sanvers, family time and cory nerding... :)

When they reached the top of the stairs Maggie wanted to make her way towards the kitchen while Alex was aiming to proceed further upstairs which resulted in Maggie walking straight into Alex.

“Ouch sorry, I thought we were supposed to have breakfast?”, Maggie apologized, pointing her finger in the direction of the kitchen.

“We need to check in on the corys first”, Alex stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world, continuing to walk up to her room.

“Kara won’t like that”, Maggie replied, following her.

“She’ll live”, Alex said, waving her hand carelessly. “Although we might not because there might not be any food left if we’re late ha.”

Maggie chuckled, but she wasn’t even sure if it had been an actual joke or not.

When they entered Alex’s bedroom the pillows were still laying on the ground as a reminder of what had happened last night. Maggie nearly froze and then remembered that there hadn’t actually happened anything, so all should be fine.

“Look, there are eggs”, Alex exclaimed in an excited whisper, pulling Maggie out of her thoughts. They both cowered and moved slowly towards the tank in order to not disturb the ongoing mating activity.

They crouched down in front of the tank and Maggie watched fascinated as the smaller male corys followed the females around. After around two minutes one of the females actually placed her eggs on the front glass while the male one followed, placing its sperm right after.

“This is awesome”, Alex whispered. Maggie looked over at her and couldn’t help but smile at the focused and happy look on Alex’s face.

“Breakfast’s nearly ready”, Kara’s yell came from downstairs, so Maggie got up carefully to not disturb the fish. Seeing that Alex’s gaze was still fixed on the tank, she said: “You gotta eat something Danvers.”

“Huh?”, Alex’s head spun around. She looked confused as to why Maggie had gotten up. “Oh, right, breakfast. This is so much cooler than eating though.”

Maggie laughed, shaking her head.

“Alex, you gotta get your body some nutrients so it can mend itself”, Maggie tried to motivate her further.

“Pff, I’m fine”, Alex said with a dismissive hand gesture, focusing her attention back on the tank.

“Aaaalex”, Kara shouted again from downstairs. “Mom made pancakes.”

“Fiiine”, Alex conceded and got up carefully, still wincing slightly. Maggie decided not to comment on that.

The others were already sitting at the table, so Maggie made a detour to introduce herself to Alex’s dad. She thought he looked like a big friendly bear with an honest and kind smile that she immediately returned despite of her usual distrust of male father figures.

“Nice to finally meet you, Maggie”, Mr. Danvers said. “Alex has been talking a lot about you, it’s good to put a face to the stories.” When he picked up on Maggie’s discomfort and Alex’s eyeroll, he added: “All good and totally not embarrassing stories, I promise.”

Maggie had to laugh at that and exchanged a quick look with Alex who pulled a face as if to say ‘Sorry about that’.

When Maggie spotted Kara actually bouncing up and down in her seat, she quickly took her place in the remaining free chair next to Alex. The moment her butt had touched the seat, Kara grabbed two pancakes so quickly that Maggie blinked, asking herself if she had missed a few seconds of what had been happening. Maggie waited until she was offered the plate with pancakes by Alex, then took one. Alex loaded a second one onto Maggie’s plate without looking at her, probably to actively ignore any protest from Maggie’s side.

When everybody finally had food on their plate and Maggie was offered freshly pressed orange juice by Eliza, Kara grabbed for her second helping. Maggie glanced over at Alex in confusion who just chuckled and shrugged her shoulders. So apparently Kara’s extreme eating habits were considered to be normal in this family.

Breakfast overall was cheery and fun. Also, Maggie really liked the food but even more so she liked the fact that she was sitting on a big and busy table and felt included, almost at peace. She missed having a big family around. Before she was thrown out and came to live with her aunt, she had shared the house with two brothers, one baby sister and a grandmother and there had rarely been a moment of peace and quiet anywhere in the house. Although Maggie liked to be alone from time to time, she sometimes felt a heaviness sink in on a slow Sunday afternoon alone at her aunt’s, even more so if she was out and they couldn’t even play games together or watch TV. She was incredibly grateful that she had her aunt to live with, but one person couldn’t make up for a whole lost family.

“So, Maggie, have you always lived in Blue Springs?”, Maggie was pulled out of her thoughts by Alex’s father towards the end of breakfast.

“Uhm, yes Sir”, Maggie replied in what she hoped would be a steady voice. Despite his friendly manner, Maggie couldn’t shake the weary feeling she had towards Mr. Danvers.

“Drop the ‘Sir’ and call me Jeremiah, please”, he said with a laugh. Maggie wasn’t exactly sure if that made her feel better. He seemed to generally like her but she still felt like this could lead up to an interrogation.

“Okay”, Maggie said with a shy nod of her head.

“Do you have any recommendations as to what we could get up to today around here? The weather doesn’t look too promising…”, he continued. Okay, so no family questions yet, that was something. Maggie wasn’t sure but she thought she could feel Alex relax next to her as well.

“Well, there is a small cinema in Beatrice around 15 miles from here”, Maggie suggested after a moment of thinking. “Apart from that, bad weather usually leaves one with the usual options of playing games, watching TV, reading and such things.”

“I haven’t really had a look at the usual weather and climate around here”, Jeremiah replied. “Do we need to upgrade our stock of games, books and movies?”

Maggie had to laugh at that, she knew now where Alex had gotten her witty comments from.

“I don’t really know how big that stock is, but I’d say it couldn’t hurt. Especially in the winter, there can be pretty heavy snowstorms. Last winter in February, pretty much everybody was stuck inside for four days.”

“Oh my god, how much snow was there?”, Kara exclaimed with what seemed to be a mix of excitement and shock.

“Uhm, I think around 50 feet”, Maggie said, looking over towards James who nodded in agreement.

“50 feet?!”, Alex said looking slightly shocked herself, but nothing compared to her sister. Kara’s mouth had actually dropped open at Maggie’s statement.

“Yup”, James backed up Maggie’s story. “We couldn’t get out of the house, it was just too much snow.”

“Okay, I think I will add some stocks and supplies to my shopping list for next week”, Jeremiah said with raised eyebrows.

“It is advised to have at least one week’s stock worth of food and drinks at hand any time of the year, especially in the winter”, Maggie explained. “Does your house have a generator?”

“It doesn’t”, Jeremiah replied with a head shake.

“Sometimes the power dies and it helps to keep at least one room of the house warm enough for a few days”, Maggie explained.

“Makes sense, I’ll add it to the list then”, he replied with a slightly worried look towards his wife.

“Where the hell did we move to?”, Alex mumbled, her expression darkened.

“Language, Alex”, Eliza said in a quiet but determined tone.

“Sorry”, Alex apologized at once, somewhat sinking down in her chair. Maggie wasn’t sure if anyone else was picking up on Alex’s body language as much as she was. She had a talent for spotting tiny details like those but had come to know that most people weren’t as perceptive.

“So, do you think it is safe to go to the cinema or do we need to buy a boat in case of floods first?”, Jeremiah asked Maggie with a laugh that Maggie returned.

“I don’t think there was anything about floods in the weather forecast or my aunt wouldn’t have let me stay the night. Our cellar tends to get wet a bit too fast and she usually requires my help with that”, Maggie said without thinking. She had felt comfortable enough to let her guard down somewhat. She usually didn’t talk about her living conditions. She saw Jeremiah and Eliza exchange a quick look and was already bracing herself for the inevitable questions that would surely follow now, when she was saved by Kara: “So, does that mean we’ll be going to the cinema?”

Maggie saw Kara glance over to Alex which made her realize that Kara had changed the topic on purpose. Though she wasn’t exactly pleased about the fact that Alex and Kara seemed to have been talking about her living with her aunt, she was glad that she was spared the questions for now when their dad let them know that he would call the cinema to ask for their schedule.

While they waited for Jeremiah to return with movie options, Maggie was dwelling on the fact that Alex had talked to Kara about her living arrangements and wondered what else they had been discussing when she suddenly realized that Alex couldn’t possibly have talked to Kara since last night. So it must have been before that, but Alex had been tactful enough to let Maggie open up to her instead of inquiring out of curiosity. She relaxed again and smiled over at Alex who had been watching her in concern, but returned the smile at once. As Maggie hated to make others worry about or even worse pity her, she started a conversation about favorite movies with the others. She already knew about Kara’s liking for Disney movies and musicals. She was a bit surprised by James talking about a few European movies she had never heard of as she had somehow expected him to be the typical action movie guy. Alex however seemed to be the action liking one and Maggie really had to hold back on a ‘that’s gay’ comment when Alex shared her liking for the Lara Croft movies.

“I think it will be difficult to find a movie that is a European action musical”, Maggie commented with a laugh. “If they even have a movie choice at all. Beatrice isn’t New York City.”

“So I’ve noticed”, Alex sighed heavily and then grinned at Maggie. “So what kind of movies do you like?”

“Oh, uhm”, Maggie had to consider for a moment. She wasn’t used to people being interested in her anymore, especially so many at once and on the same day. Her aunt always wanted to know a lot but knew Maggie well enough by now to not push things too much. Apart from that, Maggie had kept a lot to herself since what she usually called ‘the incident’ in her mind.

“I like a lot of movies, they just have to have well developed and displayed characters.” She refrained from saying that she didn’t exactly enjoy dramas. She didn’t need additional sadness and drama in her life. Nevertheless she had seen a few movies with gay characters in them that her aunt sometimes brought from the video rental. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of happy endings featured in those. Apparently being gay could lead to a pretty hard life, often involving deaths. Maggie was carefully hopeful though that things might improve for her once she got out of Blue Springs and into a college in a bigger city.

“Okay guys, we have tickets for ‘Finding Nemo’ at 3 pm”, Jeremiah announced when he came back. Kara cheered and high-fived an amused James and a thrilled looking Winn which made Maggie chuckle. When she looked over to Alex she had expected to find a somewhat disgruntled expression but to her surprise Alex couldn’t quite hide the fact that she was apparently into 3D animated movies. Maggie grinned over at her which lead Alex to scratch the back of her head again in that adorable way.

“Do you still need to go home before the movie, James, Maggie?”, Eliza asked them.

“A change of clothes would be nice”, Maggie admitted shrugging and James nodded in agreement.

“No problem, I will drive you later”, Alex announced. “But we gotta do some studying first.”

Apparently this wasn’t up for discussion, so Maggie followed her back up to her room where they took their places before the tank.

“I think they’re calming down somewhat”, Alex commented after around 15 minutes of silent observation.

“Is that a bad thing?”, Maggie wanted to know, looking over at her. She couldn’t help herself, she liked looking at Alex too much to not take any excuse to do so.

“No not at all, just means we can start collecting the eggs in a bit”, Alex explained with an excited smile.

“Collect them?”, Maggie asked, somewhat lost as she had no idea how to breed corys.

“Yeah we need a really sharp knife and then we need to carefully collect them out of the tank and put them into a box with not even an inch high water in it. We have to change part of the water every day and take out the unfertilized eggs because they attract fungi. After about two to three days, the first babys will hatch”, Alex laid out the next steps.

“Cool”, Maggie replied with an excited smile herself. She could listen to Alex nerding on all day.

“How about I drive you to your place to get changed and when we’re back, we’ll start collecting them. That should be enough time”, Alex suggested.

“Sounds good, I’m gonna tell James so you can get changed”, Maggie said and excused herself out of the room.

Alex had totally forgotten that she was supposed to take James as well. She felt somehow disappointed but couldn’t quite place why. Shaking her head, she walked over to her closet to pick out something to wear for the day. She normally didn’t give a lot of thought to what she was wearing. Her clothes weren’t uncool or outdated at all, she had just never needed a lot of time to decide what to wear as she usually wasn’t trying to look good for anyone. For some reason, it took her a lot longer than usual today until she had finally decided on a pair of jeans, a shirt and a flannel. When she came out of the bathroom, she went back to her room to grab a vest to put over the flannel. She wasn’t sure how she should survive the winter here when she was already freezing now during fall season.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex gets to know Maggie's aunt, apart from that some Sanvers cuteness ;)

When Alex finally made her way down the stairs, Maggie and James were already hovering near the front door.

“Sorry”, Alex mumbled, quickly reaching for her jacket.

“I didn’t take you for the type that needs hours in the bathroom, Danvers”, Maggie teased with a grin. “Or did you get lost in the tank?”

Alex only grinned back, fishing her keys out of her jacket and motioning for the other two to follow her. The few yards from the house to the car were already enough to get them all pretty soaked.

“Well, I guess I could have saved the time in the bathroom for something different”, Alex grumbled when they had jumped into the car.

“Don’t worry, Danvers, the wet look suits you”, Maggie commented. So much for wanting to tone it down. Alex felt herself reddening slightly and she smiled over at Maggie uncertainly. She felt warm despite the cold and heavy rain she had just had the displeasure to run through.

After having dropped off James, Alex drove the car along the now familiar way to where Maggie lived. She could feel that Maggie was beginning to get nervous.

“Are you okay?”, she asked therefore.

“Yeah, just a bit wet”, Maggie replied. Alex laughed, she couldn’t help herself.

“Well well, Danvers, you have a dirty mind”, Maggie replied cheekily. Alex spotted her raising an eyebrow with an amused expression on her face when she glanced over.

“Not really”, Alex said, shrugging. Or maybe she had. She found those kind of things funny a lot of times but she certainly hid it around Kara and her parents and she apparently hadn’t had a lot of people so far where she felt comfortable enough to let it show.

“Uhu”, Maggie said with a laugh.

“So, why are you nervous?”, Alex changed the subject.

“I’m not”, Maggie answered a bit too quickly.

“I can wait in the car if there’s a problem with meeting your aunt or something”, Alex clarified, glancing over at Maggie again.

“No, it’s fine, there’s no problem”, Maggie said, looking out of the window to her right.

“What is it then? Are you a messie, Sawyer?”, Alex tried the teasing approach.

“Ha, no, more like the opposite”, Maggie laughed. “I’m the one that sees to the cleaning schedule being kept.”

“Figures”, Alex mumbled with a grin, deciding to drop it as Maggie obviously didn’t wanna talk about whatever made her nervous. Maybe it was the fact that she went there to change clothes and maybe she thought Alex would stay in the room while doing so?

“It’s not you”, Maggie said in a low voice after a moment of silence. “I just never took someone home since… I’ve been living with my aunt.”

“Okay”, Alex replied with an understanding nod. “What are you afraid will happen now?”

“I dunno, probably just linked to bad memories”, Maggie mumbled.

Alex thought she got what Maggie was implying. She hesitated for a moment.

“You know I would never do something to hurt you like that”, Alex finally said. Maggie’s head spun back around. “I mean, even if I had been in that Eliza Wilkie’s place, I wouldn’t have walked out on you and I certainly would have told my asshole brother to lay off of you.”

Alex could feel herself getting angry again. She hated what had happened to Maggie and the people that had treated her this badly.

“I know”, Maggie whispered, looking back out of the window. Alex wasn’t sure if she had made things worse, she now felt nervous herself, so she was glad when they pulled up in front of Maggie’s place and the quiet was ended.

When Maggie got out of the car, Alex stayed put, causing Maggie to look back from the door in confusion. Alex could see her shake her head and laugh, waving for her to come over. Alex was still hesitating, apparently too long for Maggie’s liking because she made her way back through the rain, ripped open the door on Alex’s side and yelled over the noise of the rain and the storm: “Get your ass over there, Danvers!”

Alex laughed and they ran back to the house together.

“Language, Sawyer”, Alex teased, once they reached the safety of the roof.

“You’re one to talk”, Maggie said with a grin, opening the door and shouting “Jasmina, I’m home!”

It took a few seconds until a woman with dark curls and a bright, friendly smile appeared. She was younger than Alex had expected, maybe in her thirties.

“Hey, Maggie”, she greeted. “Oh and you brought a friend. Are you Alex?”

“Uhm, yeah”, Alex replied, a bit startled. “Nice to meet you, Misses Sawyer.”

“That would be Miss and for you Jasmina”, Maggie’s aunt replied with a laugh.

“Can I get you something warm to drink? You look… wet”, she offered. Alex caught the tiny smirk on Maggie’s face before she answered: “No thanks, we’re just here to get me a change of clothes. We’ll be going to the movies. With Alex’s family and James and Winn.”

“Oh, that’s nice!”, Jasmina exclaimed, looking very happy. Maybe it was because Maggie didn’t seem to have a lot of friends around here.

“You might wanna get Alex some new clothes too”, she added with a smile. “Just let me know if you change your mind and I will make you some tea or hot cocoa okay?”

“Okay, thanks, Jas”, Maggie said before motioning for Alex to follow her upstairs.

Maggie’s room was small but considering the dark raging storm outside pretty bright because it had its own small balcony which meant that one side of the room pretty much consisted of only windows. As Maggie had hinted earlier, it was very tidy and everything seemed to be in order. Her bed was made in a way worthy of a hotel one, her desk didn’t have the paper and clutter on it Alex’s usually held to at least some amount. Books and CDs were standing sorted alphabetically in the shelves.

“Fancy”, Alex commented with a grin. “I don’t think I know any teenager with their own balcony.”

“Well, now you do”, Maggie laughed. “I don’t have any autographs at hand but I will make sure to have my agent send you one over.”

Alex chuckled and walked over to the window to watch the storm outside.

“I know you don’t like thunderstorms but I do”, Alex said, hugging herself with her arms because she was still cold and wet. “Well, I don’t really like the wind part but the sounds remind me of the ocean.”

“Did you live close to the ocean?”, Maggie wanted to know, joining Alex in front of the window.

“Yeah, our garden practically gave way to the beach”, Alex said with a sad smile, thinking back to their beautiful property there. She missed the peacefulness only surfing could ever give her.

“I would really like to see you surf someday”, Maggie replied after a moment of silence. Alex looked over to her. She looked back with a small smile. Alex felt a strange tugging in her belly. She really missed surfing.

“Well, if the storm keeps blowing like that, I could maybe even surf in that lake here”, Alex tried to lighten the mood after a moment.

Maggie laughed, showing all her dimples and Alex couldn’t help but grin back.

Suddenly there was an unexpectedly loud thunder and Maggie cringed, not a lot, but Alex had noticed. Without hesitating she put a comforting arm around Maggie, whispering “It’s fine, you’re safe.”

Maggie still seemed to be frozen, she didn’t move a muscle and hadn’t looked up at Alex.

“Why don’t we get you into some dry clothes?”, Alex offered in order to distract her. She wasn’t sure but she thought she could feel Maggie tightening up even more, so Alex let go, murmuring “Sorry”.

“What? No you’re fine”, Maggie replied quickly, finally moving again. “Sorry, it wasn’t your fault. But yeah, dry clothes. Good idea.”

She turned and walked over to her closet. Alex could hear her rummaging around, so she looked out of the window again to give her some privacy. She startled when she felt something soft collide with her head, ending up with a dark green hoodie hanging in front of her face.

“Wha-”, Alex huffed in confusion.

“You’re cold and wet, Danvers”, Maggie stated. “Change or it’ll be my fault when you miss more days at school because you caught the flu.”

“I’ll be fine”, Alex grumbled but got rid of her wet shirts and put on Maggie’s hoodie. It was very comfortable and warm and smelled like her too. As much as she had been considerate to turning around so Maggie could change, she totally hadn’t when she herself had done so which only occured to her when she was bowing down to pick up her wet clothes off the floor.

“Uh, sorry, I didn’t think -”, Alex began awkwardly.

“You’re fine”, Maggie said with a wave of her hand, but something felt weird between them.

“I didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable or anything”, Alex tried to smooth the situation. “It just hadn’t crossed my mind… You know… Because you’re a girl and all.”

“All good as long as you’re good”, Maggie replied with an uncertain smile.

“Yeah of course”, Alex was quick to reassure her.

“Good, than I suggest we put an end to this strange conversation and take my aunt up on her offer for hot cocoa if you want one too”, Maggie said with a grin.

“Oh yes, please”, Alex agreed with a breathy laugh, following Maggie out of her room.

When they entered the kitchen, there were already two steaming hot mugs on the table.

“Ha, I knew it”, Maggie exclaimed which caused Jasmina to pop her head in with a bright smile on her face.

“Just in case…”, she supplied with a wink. “If you want to you can join me on the sofa, I got myself one too.”

Maggie grabbed the two mugs and made her way to the living room, motioning for Alex to sit down and handing her her hot cocoa.

“I really like your house”, Alex said, looking around the small but cozy living room.

“Thank you”, Jasmina replied with a smile that Alex returned before taking a sip. She could feel the hot liquid going down her throat and warming her up from the inside. She closed her eyes in enjoyment.

“She’s lived in California until now so she’s nearly freezing to death already”, Maggie explained towards her aunt.

“Haha”, Alex said with an eyeroll in Maggie’s direction.

“Well, that explains why Maggie has lend you her favorite and warmest sweater she absolutely refuses to even let me touch”, Jasmine laughed.

Maggie rolled her eyes.

“She’s exaggerating”, Maggie explained matter of factly.

Alex only snuggled deeper into the cloth and sipped on her hot cocoa again with a smile on her face.

 

When they had finished their drinks, they made their way back to Alex’s car. Having called him from Maggie’s, James knew they were coming to pick him up again and he was already waiting.

“Hey you two”, James greeted them, once in the car. “Didn’t get swept away by the storm or water?”

“No, Alex is a good swimmer”, Maggie supplied with a grin. “She even wanted to go surfing in the lake. Crazy those California girls huh.”

James laughed and Alex pulled back onto the street with a playful eye roll.

 

Once they were back in the Danvers house, they sort of all assembled in the living room which now was a bit crowded even though the house was rather big. Winn and Kara were playing a very intense game of Ligretto, cheered on by James, Maggie and Alex. Kara moved so quickly that Maggie nearly couldn’t follow her movements.

“Ligretto!”, Kara shouted and Winn hung his head.

“This isn’t normal”, he sighed. “I give up.”

“No worries, Winn, nobody in this household ever won a game of Ligretto against this one”, Jeremiah consoled him with a quick ruffle through Winn’s hair. Winn grinned up at him, his eyes shining happily even though he had just lost.

“Okay, guys, we’re seven people which means we have to take two cars”, Jeremiah continued. “Were you okay driving in this weather, Alex?”

“Yes, no problem”, she said with a rather serious expression.

“You really are a good driver”, Maggie said, bumping her arm into Alex’s which caused her to smile again.

“Maybe we take those three with us so she is less distracted though”, Eliza cut in which let Alex to frown again. Maggie wasn’t sure yet what, but something was going on with Alex whenever her mother was involved. Eliza hadn’t waited for an answer from Alex, but only motioned for them all to move to get dressed. Alex sort of stayed to hover in the background, so Maggie did too.

“Alex, are you coming?”, Eliza shouted from the door. “You shouldn’t be in a hurry if you want to drive safely.”

Alex huffed and rolled her eyes.

“There isn’t even room for us to move right now”, she answered her mother, squeezing herself between Kara and her dad to get to her jacket.

“Don’t be ridiculous, we’re already out the door”, Eliza replied, exiting through the front door, followed by James, Winn and Kara.

“But that’s why I - ugh, never mind”, Alex mumbled, shrugging her shoulders.

“Drive safely, champ”, Jeremiah said with a warm smile, pinching Alex’s arm. “See you in a bit.”

Alex smiled back at him, handing Maggie her jacket while Jeremiah ran over to the car to join the others.

“Well, at least they will have to endure Kara and Winn singing now, ha”, Alex said to smoothe over her insecurities.

“True, now the stage is free for Alex Danvers to perform”, Maggie replied with an evil grin.

“Yeah, no way, Sawyer”, Alex said. “The only one who gets to hear me sing and sees me dance is my shower head.”

“I’d like to be your shower head”, Maggie laughed, then her face fell. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“Relax, Sawyer”, Alex grinned. “Stop panicking around me please. You’re fine.”

Okay, what was that supposed to mean? Maggie couldn’t really dwell on that because she was dragged out the door by Alex who had put the hood of Maggie’s hoodie over her head to protect herself from the rain. Unfortunately this made her look even cuter, especially when they were both sitting in Alex’s car again and Alex grinned over at her in that sweet way she only seemed to do with Maggie.

‘Oh, this wasn’t good’, Maggie thought to herself. She was already in trouble, she could feel it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of them watching the movie together causes some drama...

Maggie was quieter than usual during the drive to Beatrice. Alex wasn’t sure if it was because she wanted her to be able to concentrate on her driving or if there was another reason. It was raining pretty heavily and Alex had to steer against the wind more than a few times.

“Well, I don’t know what your mom was so worried about, I think you are an excellent driver, Danvers”, Maggie stated once Alex had parked the car in the parking lot behind the theatre.

Alex just huffed when being reminded of her mother’s comment and shrugged her shoulders.

“That was supposed to be a compliment”, Maggie added, frowning over at her. Alex caught her eyes for a moment and grimaced.

“Yeah sorry”, she mumbled. “My mom’s just…”

“A sore spot?”, Maggie suggested with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, let’s settle for that for the time being”, Alex sighed, pulling the hood over her head again.

“I don’t think you will ever get that hoodie back, Sawyer”, she added with a grin. Maggie chuckled. She had hoped she would get it back, preferably without it being washed first.

 

When they had entered the theatre, Alex slung her arms around herself. The hoodie was slightly damp again from their running through the rain and with the air conditioning on she was a bit chilly.

“I think we’ll have to go shopping, Danvers”, Maggie said when she had spotted that Alex was cold.

“Hm?”, Alex hummed, letting her eyes roam around the room to look for the rest of their party.

“If you are cold now, we will need to up your wardrobe”, Maggie explained.

“Or I will just keep your hoodie”, Alex grinned back. “And anyhow, how do you know what I have in my wardrobe?”

Maggie chose to not comment on the fact that she knew pretty much every piece of clothing Alex had worn over the last few weeks. It was true, she couldn’t know if Alex had a closet full of winter clothes at home. Unlikely, but still.

“Ah, there they are”, Alex finally exclaimed, pulling Maggie by the wrist over to her family, James and Winn who were all standing in line.

“Hey there”, Jeremiah greeted them friendly. Kara smiled at them, slightly bouncing up and down on her feet while James and Winn just waved over with a grin.

“Were you okay driving, Alex?”, Eliza wanted to know and Maggie could feel Alex crouching down into herself for just an inch.

“She drove perfectly, Misses Danvers”, Maggie said at once.

“Eliza, dear”, she was reminded with a warm smile.

“Right, sorry”, Maggie mumbled, slightly distracted by the fact that Alex had leaned into her side just barely noticeably.

While they were waiting in line, Alex dwelled on the fact that Maggie had stood up for her so quickly when nobody else never even noticed that there might be a need for that. Not that Alex needed someone to stand up for her, she had been totally fine up until now, but it was still a nice and rather new feeling having someone in her corner like that.

“Oh great”, Alex heard Maggie mumble next to her which ripped her out of her thoughts.

“What’s wrong?”, she asked Maggie in a low voice.

“Harold”, Maggie hissed back, motioning with her eyes in the direction of the counter where Alex indeed spotted Harold selling tickets.

“Great, just what this day was missing”, Alex grumbled annoyed.

“I could just give your parents the money and we’ll go to the bathroom or something”, Maggie suggested, looking at Alex in concern.

“What? No, I will not back down from that jerk”, Alex exclaimed a bit too loud, making her father turn around in interest.

“You okay back there?”, he wanted to know.

“Yup, fine”, Alex shot back quickly. He looked at her for another second, then turned around again.

“Okay then”, Maggie conceded while Alex watched Harold handing over a stack of tickets to the group before them. When they had moved out of the way, Eliza ordered their tickets and after a short discussion Alex couldn’t hear, Harold handed the tickets out separately. When Alex and Maggie had moved closer to get theirs they received an evil grin from him.

Eliza ushered them over to the next counter to get popcorn and drinks while explaining that they had to split up their seats because there hadn’t been seven seats next to each other. Alex and Maggie examined their tickets and found out that they had been placed next to each other in the back row while Kara, James and Winn were sitting together somewhere around the middle and Eliza and Jeremiah on the right side near the stairs.

Alex was a bit confused why Harold had seemed to think he was harassing them by making them sit next to each other until they entered the theatre room. Apparently he had seated them in the lovers’ seats which were more a small sofa than real seats.

“Ugh, I’m sorry Alex”, Maggie said, a pained expression on her face.

“Huh? Why are you sorry?”, Alex wanted to know, walking into Maggie who had stopped not moving on into the row to get their seats. Maggie didn’t reply, so Alex went on: “How is this your fault? And by the way, I don’t mind sitting there with you. Let people think what they want. And I certainly don’t mind sitting next to you in general. I mean we basically slept in the same bed, so…”

Maggie didn’t think Alex was particularly helping her panicking with those explanations but she could hardly tell her that, so she forced a smile onto her face and let Alex walk past her, following her rather reluctantly. Finding Nemo wasn’t exactly a romantic movie anyway, so nevermind, right?

 

Unfortunately Maggie hadn’t thought as far as the movie being about family. And even if they weren’t all sitting together and even if she wasn’t the only non-family member of the party and even if she had already seen that the Danvers weren’t perfect - as every other family - Maggie had trouble not letting things get to her several times during the movie. It wasn’t exactly helping that Alex was sitting next to her, really close by, because Maggie wasn’t used to having someone around that made her open up, at least to a certain point. And the worst part was that she couldn’t help opening up to Alex, something was different about her that made her walls crumble way too fast. So when Marvin and Dory finally reunited with Nemo and Alex looked over and immediately realized that something was up with Maggie, Maggie was defenseless. Alex didn’t even ask what was wrong, she just kept looking at her and reached over to take Maggie’s hand.

Maggie knew that it was supposed to be a consoling gesture but she couldn’t help her stomach lurching, her breath hitching. She couldn’t help how right it felt. And she couldn’t help thinking how wrong it was of her to think like that. Still, she couldn’t get herself to pull her hand away from Alex’s touch.

Alex had turned her head back towards the movie again, but she didn’t let go of Maggie’s hand. So they were sitting in the lovers’ seat at the theatre holding hands and Maggie’s heart was racing. She was overwhelmed with everything she was thinking and feeling concerning her own family, Alex and everything those things entailed. She just hoped Alex couldn’t pick up on all those things.

 

Alex’s phone buzzed, so she fumbled it out of her pocket with her free hand, so she didn’t need to let go of Maggie’s. Kara had shot her a text:  _ r u 2 okay? Both your hearts are racing. _

Alex blinked in confusion for a moment, trying to concentrate on her own heart beat. It was indeed racing. It couldn’t really be the movie. Okay, she had been a bit startled when the sharks had appeared on screen earlier but that had been like an hour ago. She hadn’t had any coffee nor had she exercised a lot the last few days. So why was her heart racing?

She spotted Kara turning around and mimed a thumbs-up to let her know everything was okay. Then she glanced over to Maggie. The fact that Maggie’s heart was racing could only mean that she wasn’t okay at all and Alex thought she knew why. With all that family stuff in the movie and Maggie’s history, she would probably want to leave the room too.

“Wanna get out of here?”, Alex whispered into Maggie’s ear which made Maggie jump slightly.

“Sorry”, Alex mumbled, looking at her friend in concern.

“I’m fine”, Maggie said, pulling her hand away from Alex’s. Alex frowned. Maggie had her eyes fixed onto the screen and her expression was the unreadable one she usually wore in school whenever she was interacting with anyone that wasn’t Alex, James, Winn or Kara.

“No you’re not”, Alex said in a low voice.

“Please just drop it Alex, okay?”, Maggie all but hissed over at her. Alex felt a sting in her heart, she hated seeing Maggie being in pain like this. But if she needed space, she would back off. So she leaned onto the armrest, away from Maggie to show her she had gotten the message.

When the movie was finished, Maggie didn’t say a word but just moved past Alex to join the others in the hallway. She even joined in the laughter and happy discussions about the movie and no one else seemed to notice that anything was up. But Alex caught Maggie glancing towards her more than a few times. It wasn’t exactly as if Maggie was ignoring Alex while they were all talking together, except that it felt like she sort of was.

When they began to move towards the doors to go home, Maggie said to Eliza: “Wouldn’t it make more sense if only one car would have to drop off James, Winn and me? I don’t want to cause extra trouble.”

“No, Maggie it’s fine, I can…”, Alex began but was cut off by her mother.

“That’s sweet of you, dear”, Eliza replied with a smile towards Maggie. “Maybe you could drive with Alex and Kara, honey, and I’ll drive the rest of the pack home?”, she added towards her husband.

Luckily Kara’s disappointment was drawing attention away from Alex’s. Apparently she had pushed too far with Maggie, she hoped she hadn’t done anything else wrong. Maybe she had.

“Can I at least drive?”, she asked her father when they were walking through the rain that was lighter than before.

“Sure”, her dad said with a smile, opening the back door for Kara before getting in on the passenger side. Alex took her place behind the wheel, put on some music she knew Kara would like and followed her mother’s car out of the parking lot. She could see Maggie turn around in the back seat and they looked at each other for a moment. When Alex waved and smiled, Maggie smiled back weakly and turned back around.

Alex didn’t get anything of what Kara and her father were talking about during the ride. She was trying to figure out what exactly she had done wrong and how she could fix it. She only realized they were home when she pulled into their driveway. She wondered for a moment how she could have driven a route on autopilot she hadn’t even taken before.

“You okay, champ?”, Jeremiah asked when Kara had hopped out of the car.

“Huh? Yeah sure, why?”, Alex replied, busying herself with her keys, already opening the door to get out of the interrogation she could sense was coming up.

“You’re quiet, everything okay with Maggie?”, her dad continued. She should have fled when she had had the chance.

“Ugh, I don’t know”, Alex mumbled. “Can we not, now? Please? Kara’s waiting.”

“Sure”, her dad said after a moment’s hesitation. She wasn’t sure if she heard him sigh when she jumped out of the car, pulling up the hood of Maggie’s sweater to protect herself from the rain. It still smelled like her. Somehow that comforted and pained her at the same time.

When they had entered the house, Alex made her way directly up to her room and shut the door, hoping her dad would let it drop for now. She was listening hard but when she couldn’t hear his heavy footsteps on the stairs for several minutes, she relaxed and lay down on her bed. She thought about texting Maggie, but then thought it would be best to give her some space and try and talk to her when she would pick her up the following morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it - I'm always happy about Kudos and comments and you can find me over on [tumblr too: Tonxi](http://tonxi.tumblr.com/).  
> Thanks for reading and let me know what you think! :)
> 
> You can find my other contributions for Sanvers Week here:  
> Day 1 - Alternate Meeting: [On Top](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13641921)  
> Day 3 - Coffee Shop AU: [Cookie Love](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13668807)  
> Day 4 - Soulmate AU: [Not Enough](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13679055)  
> Day 5 - Undercover AU: [Unusual](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13684188)  
> Day 6 - Hogwarts AU: [Enchanted](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13707432)  
> Day 7 - Teachers AU: [Distraction](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13716546)


End file.
